Use Skills, Not Pills

Stress is the most commonly used word in today’s busy world. Many health hazards are immediately connected to stress. While it is said to affect the most busy business people, the reality that it affects even children who are burdened with too many lessons to study and too many home works to complete, saddens us.
Some people want to reduce their stress so much that they are willing to pay large sums of money to do so. People spend thousands of rupees needlessly on stress vitamins, tranquillising pills, sleeping pills and many more products in the hope of eliminating the harmful effects of stress on their health.  
Sometimes stress becomes really severe, in spite of all your efforts. Then even small details become overwhelming. If you find yourself chronically unable to function because stress is so overwhelming, it may be time to seek outside help. 
Perhaps that is the time when people caught in stress begin to look for any product or service that can bring you a little relaxation and tranquillity. Today one needs to be aware that any product or service that can bring you relaxation can take your money, and make empty promises that it will bring a 
soothing relaxation. 
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it,” said General Douglas MacArthur. Stress is the by product of entering into a war without a will to win. For those who are determined to win and courageously enter into any risk, stress has no place.
Wise time management can also help you to minimise stress. When students say that they spent all week studying for their exams, it actually means that they spent six days worrying about the exams and just spent one day studying. Thus, instead of worrying too much if we can make the best use of time, stress can 
be released. 
All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people. Perhaps you can choose the moments of stress to listen to others and humbly receive some helps from others, so that you don’t lose your inner peace and calm.
Helen Keller said, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” Perhaps stressful moments open new horizons for anyone caught in stress. The saddest reality is that those under stress remain looking at the door that is closed instead of the new horizon that has opened up. 
Stress comes into the life of so many people primarily because many of us want to be men of success rather than men full of values. Human mind can easily work out a clear plan without taxing your mind or body in such a way that it can lead us to a stress free life. Instead of relying too much on the artificial ways of removing stress which in turn may bring additional problems, it is better to opt for a simpler and personal solution to the problem.
The exact opposite of the stress response is the relaxation response. This response reduces blood pressure, slows the pulse, quells anxiety, and releases tension. Relaxation permits your body to recover from the effects of stress, and you can will it to happen, even in the midst of a stressful situation. You can relax anywhere, any time. You can simply tune into a tranquillising thought or word and relax. For most people, though, relaxation is first learned through a formal exercise. 
Leonardo Da Vinci said, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more 
readily seen.” 
You need to develop many personal skills to handle your stress. The best relaxation will always come not from outside, but from inside. Because, relaxation, happiness and peace are inside jobs. The skills you develop to handle your worries will guard you against stress. 
Relax! Enjoy your life! For tranquillity, you don’t need pills. All you need 
is skills.

The Union of Wills

‘Union of Wills’ whose ultimate fruition is service to all beings. It will make the man-woman relationship more beautiful than a symbiotic union.

Man is a thought - adventurer, says D.H. Lawrence. Real thought is an experience. It begins as a change in the blood, a slow convulsion and revolution in the body itself. It ends as a new piece of awareness, a new reality in mental consciousness.

On this account, thought becomes an adventure, and not a practice. In order to think one must risk oneself doubly. First one must meet life in the body. Then, face the result in the mind.
The risk is double, because each of us has two selves. First is the body which is vulnerable and never quite within our control. The body with its irrational sympathies, desires and passions, its peculiar direct communication, is defying the mind. And second is the conscious ego, the self.
Historically, the male has changed considerably in the past fifty years. The earlier male was a person who was hard-working, responsible, fairly well-disciplined: he didn’t see women’s souls very well, though he looked at their bodies a lot. The present day male is vulnerable to collective opinion: if you were a man you were supposed to like football, cricket and other games, be aggressive, never cry and always provide. But this image of male lacked female. It lacked some sense of flow; it lacked compassion. He was a macho man.
Separation and unity – the excitement and fear, the triumph and anxiety they generate-will remain continuing themes in adult life. In adulthood, when we find ourselves in an intimate relationship, each of us experience again, even if only in highly attenuated form, those early struggles around separation and unity-the conflict between wanting to be one with another and the desire for an independent, autonomous self. 
For each woman and man who comes into any relationship stirs the yearnings from an unremembered but still powerfully felt past; each brings with her or him two people-the adult and the child. Both know the agony and the ecstasy of a symbiotic union. Ecstasy, because in the mother’s arms the infant could experience the bliss of unity and the security that accompanies it. Agony, because from the time of birth life seems a series of separations. 
Of course as adults we know there is no return to the old symbiotic union; survival is no longer at stake in separation. But the child within feels as if this were still the reality. And the adult responds to the archaic memory of those early feelings even though they are far from consciousness. Thus, we do not usually know what buffets us about-what makes us eager to plunge into a relationship one moment and frightens us into anxious withdrawal in the next. We know only that we long for closeness and connection with another, and that we feel uncomfortable when we get it. 
In this process, two things are central: the crystallisation of a gender identity and the maintenance of what psychologists call ‘ego boundaries’ that set us off from the rest of the world. This in larger part, is what a child’s separation struggle is all about-a struggle that’s different for boys and for girls just because it is a woman who has mothered them both.
It’s obvious that the experience of being male and being female is different. But what has been less clear until now is how the process of developing and internalising a gender identity affects the development of ego boundaries and thus, determines the shape of feminine and masculine personality in adulthood. 
Today, the man-woman relationship is a microcosm of the interaction of larger forces in the greater cosmos. However, this sacredness is lost when men and women relate to each other primarily as personalities. Then their magnetic polarity is diminished by what is known as ‘little needs’ for entertainment, excitement, security, admiration and so on. The real magic of love can happen when their connection reflects the dynamic interplay of the energies in the cosmos at large.
J.G. Bennett writes about the inner meaning of marriage as a ‘Union of Wills’ whose ultimate fruition is service to all beings.  
In order to be able to serve others, we first have to learn to serve one another, to consider other person’s well-being before our own. This union of wills will make the man-woman relationship more beautiful than a symbiotic union.

Fill your vacuum with self worth

There is a story of two famous couple’s combined intimacy and freedom. Theirs is the story of friendship which rather than crippling each other with dependence a strong relationship with one another freed them and took them further to greater heights. That is the story of DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Acheson, the co-founders, co-editors and co-owners of the popular magazine called The Reader’s Digest.
The story of how such an empire rose from an initial capitalization of $1800 is one of the most exciting success stories in the annals of American Business. It is also the success story of a friendship that turned into partnership of marriage.
When DeWitt Wallace was recovering from shrapnel wounds in the army hospital at Aix-les-Bains in 1918, he read every magazine he could lay his hands on. Most of the articles were too long. He started editing them into a shorter form.
After getting discharged from the hospital he selected a group of these condensed articles and called the collection The Reader’s Digest, and sent samples to publishers throughout the country. He was willing to give it to any publisher provided he is retained as editor of the magazine.
The experts were unimpressed. While many predicted that it would have a fast death and some said that it would not even cross a minimum circulation. Everyone he trusted turned down his offer. He was desperately looking for a friendly gesture from someone.
“A friend is one who walks in when others walk out,” said Walter Winchell. When Wallace was in Minneapolis, he found an ally, Lila Bell Acheson who had already fallen in love with Wallace. She became a source of great support to Wallace. They got married. There was hope for Wallace. Now both could dream together and achieve everything together. They got ready to go to honeymoon. Before they left both jointly sent thousands of letters as appeals. By the time they returned there were thousands of letters in their mail box. The remittances totalled nearly $5000. Wallace and Lila together worked even harder until their eyes blurred and their shoulders ached, slipped out to lunch, hurried back. The result of this hard work together brought in the long expected result. The magazine’s circulation grew beyond the couple’s fondest dreams.
Today, Reader’s Digest is printed in 21 languages, sells 18 million copies a month, and is distributed in 70 countries with 50 editions. In Asia alone there are six editions and five languages with 1.6 million copies sold every month. The company grosses an estimated $500 million a year.
This is the story of people who have understood their self worth and shared the same dream together. This is also the story of people entering into friendship having a good self image.
Today, one of the vicious circles with which therapist do daily is this one: The better a man’s self image, the better friends he is likely to choose, hence the better the relationship, and hence his self-esteem is enhanced. The worse a man’s self – image , the more likely he is to choose jerks for friends, hence the relationship is likely to go bad, and his self image is further lowered because of this failure.
How do we break that cycle? Two ways, basically. The first is to try to establish in the counselling room a good relationship. Perhaps it is the best relationship the patient has. Perhaps it is even the only one.
But that is not enough, for people who depend on the approval of others to feel good about themselves will be disappointed, and what is more, their need for approval can ruin relationships by overloading them.
M. Esther Harding says, “When someone is uncertain of himself, always needing approval and support of others and being unduly depressed by their criticism, it means that he has no valid criterion of value from within himself. If he is disapproved of, he feels crushed; if he is not noticed, he ceases to exist; and if he is praised he is in the seventh heaven of elation. He has little sense of his value, though he may give the appearance of being exceedingly egotistic, since he is always fishing for praise. He purrs and preens himself when it is given, literally basking in an atmosphere of approval, while he usually goes away by himself to hide his hurt if the desired notice is not forthcoming. His centre of gravity is not in himself, but outside in other people.”
So the lesson is obvious: No hide and seek game can help in friendships. You cannot expect someone to fill your vacuum. You cannot depend on others for your sense of self-worth. It must come from within you. Only two persons with good self image can take relationship to a newer frontiers.

Laughing to forget…Forgetting to laugh..

Human beings love to laugh. The average adult laughs 17 times a day. Humans love to laugh so much that there are actually industries built around laughter. Jokes, sitcoms and comedians are all designed to make us laugh. For us it seems so natural. But it is quite interesting that humans are one of the only species that laughs.
Three major things seems to trigger laughter. We seem to laugh when we find something unexpected, illogical and incongruous. Laughter might also be aroused due to one’s feeling of superiority over another. But most of the laughter also come out of relief from tension.
Under these conditions, our bodies perform what the Encyclopedia Britannica describes as “rhythmic, vocalized, expiratory and involuntary actions” -- better known as laughter.
We change physiologically when we laugh. The noises that usually accompany this bizarre behaviour range from sedate giggles to boisterous guffaws. We stretch muscles throughout our face and body, our pulse and blood pressure go up, and we breathe faster, sending more oxygen to our tissues.
“Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter,” said Friedrich Nietzsche. Most convincing health benefit we can see from laughter is its ability to dull pain. Numerous studies of people in pain or discomfort have found that when they laugh they report that their pain doesn’t bother them as much.
In his own research, Provine has found that we are 30 times more likely to laugh when we’re with other people than when we are alone. People who laugh a lot may just have a strong connection to the people around them. That in itself might have health benefits.
Many today agree that regardless of whether laughter actually improves your health or boosts your energy, it undeniably improves your quality of life. At the same time as Goethe said, “Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.”
Perhaps laughter must indicate trust in one’s companions. Many researchers believe that the purpose of laughter is related to making and strengthening human connections. “Laughter occurs when people are comfortable with one another, when they feel open and free. And the more laughter there is, the more bonding within the group,” says cultural anthropologist Mahadev Apte. This feedback loop of bonding-laughter-more bonding, combined with the common desire not to be singled out from the group, may be another reason why laughter is often contagious.
Studies have also found that dominant individuals -- the boss, the tribal chief or the family patriarch -- use humor more than their subordinates. If you’ve often thought that everyone in the office laughs when the boss laughs, you’re very perceptive. In such cases, Morreall says, controlling the laughter of a group becomes a way of exercising power by controlling the emotional climate of the group. So laughter, like much human behavior, must have evolved to change the behavior of others, Provine says. For example, in an embarrassing or threatening situation, laughter may serve as a conciliatory gesture or as a way to deflect anger. If the threatening person joins the laughter, the risk of confrontation may lessen.
Provine believes that laughter, like the bird’s song, functions as a kind of social signal. Other studies have confirmed that theory by proving that people are 30 times more likely to laugh in social settings than when they are alone (and without pseudo-social stimuli like television). Even nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, loses much of its oomph when taken in solitude, according to German psychologist Willibald Ruch.
New Year has begun. Everyone is serious about drawing some plans for the whole year. It might sound odd to read about laughter in the beginning of the year.
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. But in the name of decorum and decency even the basic need to laugh is being minimised in the present social setting. Many even control people by controlling their laughter.
Laughter is the shock absorber that eases the blows of life. It is a weapon to fight against our weakness and moments of dullness. It is a weapon to fight drudgery and boredom. Laughter challenges the one who laughs and those around him to by its dynamics. People look at laughter differently. A pessimist looks at laughing even in the right place and right time, as something sinful and indecent. An optimist looks at laughter as medicinal. Looking at the pessimists Voltaire wrote, “God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”
Indeed, an optimist laughs to forget, a pessimist forgets to laugh.

Power through weakness

There are some events that are simply massive - ‘once in a lifetime’ events. Events like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the tragedy of 9/11, or Tsunami that hit on 26 December 2004.
But there was one event that was simply a ‘once in eternity’ event: An event so big that the whole calendar of humanity turned around to count before and after it. That event is “The Christmas story”, a historic event that, at the time, seemed so insignificant, was happening in a dirty stable in a far off land.
Just over 2000 years ago a baby was born to an ordinary young woman called Mary. That baby was Jesus; a man who would challenge the world like no other.
The Christmas narrative has everything necessary for a great story. There is political intrigue, conflict (international, national, ethnic, and marital), anticipation (the key to every good Christmas), the drama of a delivery room, fear, and amazement. Good stuff.
But one thing that makes an impression about the Christmas story is how simple and unadorned it really is. God often brings to us the profound in the midst of the ordinary. On December 26th, The Bethlehem Gazette probably read, “Joseph and Mary, a boy, 17 inches long, 7.7 lbs.” Nothing stunning. Babies are born every day.
Don’t misunderstand. The birth of a virgin-born son is no little thing. The eternal Word becoming flesh does not happen every day. The Christmas story shows how God fills the seeming insignificant with his presence and makes what might have been mundane into profound mystery.
First, we should notice the insignificant places. Our story gives passing mention to Rome, centre of the inhabited world and Syria, gateway to the East. The influential people and those who ruled others lived there. The lifestyles of the rich and famous were recorded there. But the focus is on little places, such as: Bethlehem, which used to be the city of the great king (David), Puny and insignificant Nazareth from where Mary and Joseph hail and the manger where the baby Jesus was lying.
No one cared much about Bethlehem, Nazareth, Manger and the fields. Bethlehem was nothing to write about. Certainly it was not where you’d go on your honeymoon, leave along for the birth of your first child. Nazareth too was insignificant. Nathanael later asked of Nazareth, “Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46).
Is it just possible that Bethlehem, Nazareth, the manger, and the fields become key places in God’s self-revelation? Could it be that there really are no little places in the world? Maybe when God comes near, all the little places become big!
Second, we should notice the insignificant people. The important people of the world mentioned are: Caesar Augustus and Quirinius. But our text gives only passing reference to these men and that is probably done so as to root our story in history.
Our story focuses on a poor young couple from Nazareth. Mary and Joseph, shepherds and the innkeeper—well, not really. In fact, he is so insignificant; but, It’s amazing to notice how much importance he gets in the average Christmas pageant.
God uses ordinary people—just like you and me. It reminds us of 1 Corinthians 1:26, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.” Let’s face it: the people in the Christmas story were nothing to write home about. Neither are we. Maybe when God comes near, all the little people suddenly seem to matter.
These events and features of Christ’s birth have always been interwoven with insignificant and secular stuff. The challenge for us is to ensure that Christmas is not emptied of its spiritual essence.
Do you come from a remote town? Take heart, Christmas can happen in your little town. Do you have the self-esteem of a slug and feel as if no one cares whether you live or die? Take heart, Christmas announces that you matter to God. Do you feel as if nothing big ever happens in your life? Take heart, Christmas is for you.
Christians believe that the incarnation is very significant. We believe in what Col. James Erwin, former moon walker and astronaut, once said, “God walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon.” Yes, Christmas is significant, but the story itself tells us that the way of God in the world is still “power through weakness.”

the stuff in style

The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate ‘apparently ordinary’ people to unusual effort.

Teachers Day’ is here. We think of our beginnings. The firstthought that is still fresh in mind is the experience, either good or bad, that we had in our early schooling. We fondly think of some teachers who inspired us, convinced us of what we should be and helped us to dream a good future both for ourselves and for the society.
Dan Rather said, "The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called "truth."
The real heroes of our youngsters are not the cine stars but the teachers who made an impact. Often this fact is not brought out to the fore because there is no more glamour in the teaching profession.
The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate ‘apparently ordinary’ people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people.
Only teachers bring us a meaning system that challenges our convictions. As a result we are able to have fair ideals for life. History proves this point. Most of the wise men we read in history were teachers too. They not only had the right kind of knowledge to impart; they had the right kind of teaching style. That is how they are remembered in history.
There are many such good teachers even today, full of wisdom and knowledge. Unfortunately we cannot see or measure the fruits of their real teaching. It shows itself only after many years of experience. It stays dormant inside as meaning system till the right moment comes. Jacques Barzun rightly pointed out, "In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so." The fruits of our education may be seen only after ten or twenty years.
This being so difficult, the struggle of teachers is to bring out a result that they themselves cannot see or experience. With a blind aim and hazy direction, they are asked to guide the students. Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.
Great men believed in the power of education. Aristotle wrote: "The fate of empires depends on the education of youth." Education is the key to any change or revolution and this lies with the teacher. That is the power of the teacher. Amidst the entire struggle a teacher undergoes in the classroom, he/she also realises his/her power-power to change the students and the society. The real power comes from empowering the students.
The secret to this power lies in his own being rather than in his doing: What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. This is the key to miracles in education.
The end of education is the expert discernment in everything. A good education helps us to weed out the bad from the good and the counterfeit from the genuine. This helps us to opt for the good and the genuine when we make true life choices.
A good teacher is an instrument in reaching this goal. William Arthur Ward said, "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." A good teacher not only has the style of teaching but the right kind of stuff and passes on the stuff in style to inspire.

Virtually devoid of divide

We have united ourselves in various virtual communities for our own selfish business, knowledge and emotional needs. Have we ever given a thought about uniting ourselves on moral and spiritual realms?


India is a country whose demographics tell some tale. About 50% of its population is less than 20 years old, while 65% of its population is less than 35 years. It implies that the entire market segment which is youthful is more than double the size of United States and Canada. Entertainment, leisure, lifestyle, education, retailing etc., are services geared for this youth market with robust enthusiasm. We can understand the strength of the human resource we have. We are even proud about this fact.
We also know and understand the rules of the community; we know the healing effect of community in terms of individual lives. If we could somehow find a way across the bridge of our knowledge, would not these same rules have a healing effect upon our world?
We human beings have often been referred to as social animals. But we are not yet community creatures. We are impelled to relate with each other for our survival. But we do not yet relate with the inclusivity, realism, self-awareness, vulnerability, commitment, openness, freedom, equality, and love of genuine community spirit.
It is clearly no longer enough to be simply social animals, babbling together at cocktail parties and brawling with each other in business and over boundaries. It is our task our essential, central, crucial task to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures. It is the only way that human evolution will be able to proceed further. We need to go beyond the narrow confines of petty selfishness and rise to see a new and powerful community emerging with strong identity that is typical of a psycho-spiritual being.
While reflecting on the growth and development of human society, we are baffled to see the growth of another sector. That is the IT sector impelled by the strength of the world wide web and the internet. The rate of the growth of the Internet has generally exceeded most estimates, with increases in many, but not all segments of the population. The in direct relevance if you are planning an online community for people with no Internet access. But more importantly, it is also a call to each of us to recognize how we can lessen the divide and look for ways to contribute to the improvement of our communities as part of our online life.
There has been much speculation on the effect of online activities on our offline lives, ranging from concerns about addiction, to meeting the "loves of our lives" online and getting married. There are examples from all the extremes, but the more relevant question is how do we integrate our offline and online experiences.
Amy Jo Kim, online community architect, has suggested that there are two ways we participate in online communities: "the kind where you’re yourself and the kind where you are playing out a fantasy role.
We are often understood by people in real life and in real communities. It is not the case with the virtual world. Here you can boost your image with better photograph, cleverly crafted name and curriculum vitae and identify yourself with any icon that you want to be. We have created a split within us and within the community. The virtual community that we visualise needs to be devoid of all these divisions.
We have united ourselves in various virtual communities for our own selfish business, knowledge and emotional needs. Have we ever given a thought about uniting ourselves on moral and spiritual realms? Can we make an attempt to use these virtual communities to unite ourselves? Can they make ourselves devoid of all the divides and the split that we have created, both within each of us and among the community members?

EXPLORE THE POTENTIALS OF HUMAN SEXUALITY !

Let the beauty of human sexuality be part of our daily conversation!
In the ancient period the kings,warriors, yogis and all those whoaspired to master themselves were taught human anatomy and sexuality. This knowledge helped them to master themselves, to understand their power centres and to develop power from within. Some of the great ancient texts written in the East show how meticulously poets and men of wisdom have understood about human anatomy and sexuality and how they used it as a tool to attain perfection and to master spirituality.
Looking at the present educational system, one begins to wonder if it will facilitate men to rise above the daily trivial issues of life to a higher plane of wisdom, grace and love. Without a basic idea of our own bodies, our own sexuality and consciousness we have started probing into other bodies both on the earth and elsewhere in other planets. Man seems to be searching for meaning and power outside his own self. At the end of it he finds it easier to control external bodies than to control his inner egoistic tendencies.
There is only one power which can undermine egoism at the root, from within, and that is love and for married men, it is chiefly sexual love. The evil and falsity of egoism consist in ascribing absolute significance exclusively to oneself and denying it to others. Love compels us to recognise the absolute significance of another person for us. Through love we come to know the truth of another not in abstraction but in reality, and actually transfer the centre of our life beyond the confines of our self. In doing so we manifest and realise our own truth, our own absolute significance, which consists precisely in the power of transcending our physical existence and of living not in ourselves only but in another.
Man and his society are closely interdependent. Social institutions such as family and school impose their imprint early in the personality development of their members, who in turn tend to perpetuate the traditional pattern to which they have been moulded. It is the men and women in whom these patterns of attitude and behaviour have been incorporated who present the immediate resistance to social, economical, and political changes.
Thus prejudices, hostility of excessive self interest will disappear by helping the students to learn human sexuality.
In teaching sexuality we do not insist on the superiority of one sex over the other. Each has what the other has not; each completes the other; they are in nothing alike; and the happiness and perfection of both depend on each asking and receiving from the other what the other can give.
The actual problem of preventing children from sex education begins in the families. It seems typical for children to inquire about sex along with the myriads of other questions they ask about the world around them. Research has indicated that by about age four, most children begin asking questions about how babies are made. Yet this curiosity is often stopped short by parental response. Responses like, "wait till your father ( or mother ) comes home to ask that question," or " You are not old enough to learn about such things" are a few of the common ways by which communication in this vital areas is blocked before it has a chance to begin. Putting questions off at this early age means that you may be confronted with the potentially awkward task of starting a dialogue on sexual matters at a later period of your children’s development.
It can be helpful for parents to include information about sex and sexuality in everyday conversations. Questions like, "How do you feel about the changes in your body? What do your classmates speak about sex?" can expand their perception and broaden their vision of life.
Most young people prefer their parents be the primary source of sex information. Both mother and father have equal responsibility in imparting this information. A detailed treatise is not needed for a five year old child for the question, "Where did I come from?"
Some parents feel it inappropriate to tell their children that sexual interaction is pleasurable. Most people believe that sex education can itself cause problems, because the more children learn about sex, the more likely they are to experiment sexually.
Very few realise that knowledge about sexuality makes the children more secure and powerful. Learning sex and sexuality is never a liability. Instead, it helps them to explore the potentialities of human sexualities.

Homemade failures

In May 2007, Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 on the campus of Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Virginia. He also turned the gun on himself after killing the others. It was shocking for everyone around. Details about Cho unraveled after he committed his gory crime tell us that he was a nearly insane character who seemed to have had difficult childhood. We also had great people. We are happy about them and try to imitate them. All these greatness or belittling elements in us take us back partially to our childhood and to our families. It is for this reason that everyone values the childhood and the formation given to children in the family.
All of us bring back our childhood memories now and then. We cherish many moments of ecstasy and thrill. We have accumulated within us the years of experiences as memories. We were nourished by our experiences which shaped us. Others see in us what the past had written on us. Others experience the good or bad things that have made us up. Many have appreciated or cursed us for the kind of persons we are.
We see we have two important factors moulding us. One is the genes passed on to us; the other is the environment which shapes us. We find ourselves unable to modify what has been in us by our genes. We are able to change the environment in which we live. The family in which we are brought up is the environment which we can alter or change to suit us.
The Home is the nursery of character. Just as the home is the most potent influence for good training, so it is for bad. We do not mean that it is the only influence, for the school, companions and other circumstances to which the child is exposed, all play their part in moulding his character and shaping his personality. But the faulty or the good mental habits that are most deeply furrowed in the mind are those which are planted during the plastic years of early childhood. The fist seven years of life constitute perhaps the most important period for training to wholesome mental attitudes. The difficulties of most "problem children" originate in the family. A very large percentage of failures in life are homemade failures.
This is a broad statement but it is not so dogmatic as it may at first appear. For it is in the home that the child lays down the emotional attitudes that form the basis of his adult personality. Since the environment of the home is chiefly the creation of the parents, it is the responsibility of parents to supply a home atmosphere that will foster the growth of healthy attitudes in their children.
The child’s first teacher, and in some respects the most important teacher he will ever have, is the parent. Others may impart more knowledge and information to the child but it is from his parents that he receives his basic points of view, his methods of tackling his problems, and is fundamental philosophy of life. In the early years the parents interpret life for the child and at the same time they lay the foundations on which he will build his own future interpretations. The parents decide what pictures hang on the wall, the books that come into the home, the kind of people who visit there, the type of conversation that is encouraged, the neighbourhood in which the child is reared, the school and church he attends, and the countless other things that enter into his experience. All these factors influence the child’s present emotional responses. Many of them arouse permanent dispositions that will colour his reactions to the problems he encounters in later life.
Almost a quarter of a billion children are working as child labourers today, and will continue toiling tomorrow despite the world’s promise to care for every child, the scourge of child labour still leaves countless children deprived of their most basic rights. The saddest thing is that it happens now right where they are supposed to be secure. These children have become homemade failures.
We need a renewed determination to protect the lives of all children. Governments must be called upon to meet the commitments in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in the ILO Conventions on child labour. The international community must make the protection and development of children the first priority in aid programmes. Businesses must stop using children to turn a quick profit. And above all, ordinary people, adults and children alike, must make it clear that the abuse of children as child labourers has no place in this world.
The commercial exploitation of children in both developing and developed countries has come to be recognised as the most common form of child abuse today. Subjected to physical, psychological and emotional abuse, children are often trapped with no other options, but to be bonded in the families. Too often society simply accepts their labour at homes as a harsh reality and turns a blind eye as the children suffer horrendous abuse.
Do we consider ourselves civilised? Do we deserve to be called humanity when we take the youngest children and abuse them for petty profit and power?

Discover the man within Discover the woman within

The feminism of the post-world war II decades profoundly transformed the lives of women throughout the world. It brought about upheavals in law and the customs of everyday life, and altered the consciousness of women themselves. Obviously, such momentous changes did not spring from unprepared ground.
The world’s first organized movement on behalf of women was inaugurated in 1848 at a small chapel in the sleepy village of Seneca Falls, New York. There the twenty year old Elizabeth Cady Stanton delivered what she described as her first public speech, confessing that she was nerved for the ordeal only by her conviction that the time had come for “the question of women’s wrongs to be laid before the public” and by her belief “that woman herself must do this work; for woman alone can understand the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth of her own degradation.”
Stanton’s statement was not hyperbole. Women at that time were barred from attending educational institutions of higher studies, from voting in elections from participating in legislative bodies or from serving in the judiciary. They lived under a double standard that tolerated a high degree of sexual freedom for males but none for females. Married women were obliged to obey husbands, who had almost unlimited control over their wives’ activities and finances.
The campaigns waged by Stanton and her comrades met with belligerence and ridicule from journalists, politicians and churchmen alike. Sentiment seemed overwhelmingly hostile. Nonetheless, the women persevered, calling conferences, delivering speeches, circulating petitions and making arduous journeys to far flung towns and rural districts to address small groups in churches, halls and even barns.
After long hue and cry, after a long struggle, the United Nations affirmed “ the equal rights of men and women” in its 1945 charter and a few years later established the U.N.Commission on the status of women to advance this ideal.
Decades have passed since this first recorded struggle. Women have made inroads into traditional male professions. Condoleeza Rice is listed among the most powerful people in the world. Hillary Clinton is likely to be the first female President of the US. Parents no longer dream of marrying of their daughters, as every year throughout India, girls fare better than boys in the 10th std exams. Men are increasingly reporting to women bosses dressed in smart designer shirts and trousers with skills and attitudes to match. The non sexist ‘Ms’ is substituted for the traditional ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’, while gender inclusive terms such as ‘humanity’ instead of ‘mankind’, ‘chairperson’ instead of ‘chairman’ are slowly becoming part of our daily conversations and usage.
However, equations are changing. Men are becoming like women and women are becoming like men. The suppressed man or woman tries to free himself or herself from a perennial bondage of cultural stereotypes. We begin to hate and love ourselves all at the same time. The society as a whole is trying to balance its male – female energies. A perfect yin-yang is in the offing.
We are reminded of the powerful portrayal of Portia in the Shakespeare’s play, ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ pleading for the life of Antonio, the merchant of Venice from the incessant demand of Shylock, the Jew to kill Antonio. We see the silent and receptive role of Mary at the house of Lazarus. Above all, we see the powerful sublimation of Mary, our blessed mother, in the Gospels for the sake of God’s plan. We see her interceding particularly at Cana. These were the women of substance solving problems tactfully with their own ingenuity not with the imposed male psyche. It is obvious that women have the power to solve issues in umpteen unbelievable ways. Even her guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty, as Rudyard Kipling puts it.
With all these new found understanding, power, freedom and creativity, life emerges as strong as ever for both men and women. This life demands for a balance in the society and within each individual. Every person begins to realize that he / she is an androgen having both the male and female natures at various proportions. Essentially the masculine side comes from a place of strength and the feminine side comes from a place of goodness. Humanity, just as each individual, must have them in the right proportion. Let us discover the man and the woman within. This discovery will make life beautiful.

The joy of secret altruism

All of us have experienced, some times, the warm glow that comes from performing a good deed and getting credit for it. But there is a special kind of satisfaction that comes from doing good and keeping it secret. Those who practice this higher altruism are connoisseurs of inner joy at its loftiest refinement.
Some years ago I read of a man in Boston who went to an understaffed orphanage every Wednesday afternoon to spend an hour or two, entertaining the youngsters - doing card tricks, telling stories, giving the harassed matron and her staff a period of rest and freedom. When some curious people tried to discover his identity, the stranger would only say, “That’s not important.” Cut from the same cloth was an elderly stranger who appeared one day at a hospital in Peterborough, New Hampshire, saying, “I know you must have many odd jobs that need doing. Let me help.” For four months he performed countless menial tasks: sweeping the parking lot, building ramps, removing lint from the laundry. Once asked his name, he smiled and shook his head. “If you knew who I am,” he said, “you’d feel obliged to feel obligated. That would spoil it.” Only after he had moved away did the hospital learn that he was a former vice-president of the Pennyslvania Railroad. Retired and widowed, he had filled months of forced inactivity and grief with cheerful service, rehabilitating his own spirit as well as spreading cheer all around him.
The art of secret altruism does not come naturally. It must be cultivated, for it goes against the natural grain of our ego. We want others to recognise our noble or unselfish gestures. When they do not recognise, we’re tempted subtly to call their attention to it. In doing so, we often discover that the deed has been devalued by suspicion that its performance was prompted, at least partly, by some credit we crave. Also, in our eagerness to help, we sometimes fail to realise how embarrassing our gift may be to the sensitive, or how heavy upon the recipient may seem the obligation of gratitude.
Doing good anonymously avoids these pitfalls. Indian Philosophy speaks of Nishkamakarma. Doing good without expecting anything in return. We do good because it has to be done. We don’t do that good because we will get some benefits like money or any other kind; not even name and fame. We just do what we think is the just thing to do. When we do altruistic acts secretly our inner senses are elated.
Jesus was the supreme preacher and practitioner of doing good secretly. He decried ostentatious charity, warned His followers to “Take heed that you do not give your alms before men, to be seen by them.” After healing the leper, He sternly told him, “See that you tell no man,” and left the scene immediately.
It is often within our own circle that we find our finest opportunities for hidden helpfulness. Years ago the sculptor Sir Hubert von Herkomer found a delightful solution to a distressing family problem. His father, who lived with him, had in his own day won fame for his wood carving. And though the old man still worked at it, he repeatedly went to bed heartbroken because age had dulled his skill. Worried over his father’s unhappiness, Sir Hubert hit upon the idea of stealing downstairs at night to touch up his father’s work. A few deft strokes made all the difference. The old man would come down in the morning, look at the work and exclaim, “It’s not bad, not bad at all. I’ll make something of this yet!”
Secret giving need not be costly in either time or money. It calls only for a keen eye and an understanding heart. I can think of a friend who makes a hobby of writing unsigned but encouraging letters to men in public life who, in his estimate, are performing with integrity despite stinging criticism. His theory: For the most part, politicians get letters of appreciation only from people who want something in return. They get anonymous letters only from cranks who want to blow off stem when angry. “Why not,” he asks, “blow off a little appreciation as well – and with no strings attached?”
Those who do good quietly and without the least expectation of any reward are the ones who understand what Wordsworth meant when he wrote of “that best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” It’s amasing how much good can be done in this world if one does not care who gets the credit – and how it can set one’s life a glow!

Learning to love, loving to learn

Love has toppled kings, inspired poets, ignited wars, tamed beasts and changed the course of history. It is credited for life’s greatest joys and blamed for the crushing sorrows. And, of course, it makes the world goes round.
We know love is central to human existence. Human beings are not merely programmed for reproduction alone. The capacity for loving emotions is also written into our biochemistry.
We have inherited a wide range of different views of love – from Christian temperance to romantic passion- which are reflected by the divergent perspectives of various authors. At one extreme are those who see man/woman love primarily in terms of friendship. At another, are those who see this as sex and eroticism.
Passionate love affects the whole body, setting the heart pounding, making the stomach do flip-flops, and of course, lighting the loins on fire. These visceral sensations are the work of the vagus nerve, which traces the path through the body, coordinating the activities of internal organs, says the University of Maryland’s Stephen Porges.
Love’s absence can be devastating: the loss of spouse often hastens death in older people. Researchers have sorted out how body and mind work together to produce the wild, tender, ineffable feelings we call love.
A mother surrenders to her child, a friend to his friend, but not because of enchantment. The mother does so out of a deep rooted natural instinct. The friend surrenders by a clear decision of the will. What is true of love, however, is that our soul escapes from our hand and is sucked in by the other. This suction which another person exercises upon our life uproots it and transplants it to the beloved, where the original roots seem to take root again, as in new soil.
No one has ever arrived at a truly satisfactory definition of love. People could only exhibit love. Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.
Of all the misconceptions about love the most powerful and pervasive is the belief that “falling in love” is love or at least one of the manifestations of love. Unfortunately during the course of falling in love a boy or a girl thinks that she is in love. This misconception haunts not only the youngsters but also the elders who begin to have nightmares the moment a youngster begins to set out in pursuit of knowing what is love or when he falls in love.
But falling in love has two problems. The first is the experience of falling in love is specifically a sex linked erotic experience. We do not fall in love with our children even though we may love them deeply. We do not fall in love with our friends of the same sex –unless we are homosexually oriented- even though we may care for them greatly. We fall in love only when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated. The second problem is that the experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter whom we fall in love with, we sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough. This does not mean that we invariably cease loving the person with whom we fell in love. But it is to say that the feeling of ecstatic lovingness that charaterises the experience of falling in love always passes. The honeymoon always ends. The bloom of romance always fades.
The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual’s ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries are experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved become one!
We can find in love the most decisive indication of what a person is. All other acts and appearances can deceive us. It is in falling in love that a youngster begins to love. And in loving he learns everything for life. Only from the way one loves we can judge a person. If we do not offer the youth a chance to fall in love there will never be a chance to truly exercise his love. He will be suffocated and find himself incapable of love.
For the meandering youth the ecstasy of love will wither but not love. We might call it a crush or puppy love. But still that is a crucial stage for the youth. Because, it is in this process of switching between a crush and true love he matures as a complete human being. For the elders who have gone through this state ecstatically and painfully, it is a moment of worry and irritation to see their sons and daughters celebrating their moments of falling in love. Valentine’s day offers an invitation for the youth to fall in love and for the elders to guide the youth who fall in love. Will the adult world that has already gone through this state guide the younger generation to go through this phase of learning to love and loving to learn?

You have all the time in the world!

The sense of having only a limited time causes many people to fret and worry. The most valuable thing people can spend is time. Simply because there has to be an ending, they imagine that they peak at 50 or 40 even 20. An elderly US senator once commented on how the attitude of so little time suffocates the human spirit: “Most people say that as you get old you have to give up things. I think you get old because you give up things.”
Our world is made human by people with a quite different time sense. The great political leaders, scientists, social revolutionaries and great religious leaders, all of them had a very different time sense. The British novelist E.M. Forster once wrote of them: “The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society were eternal. Both assumptions must be accepted if we are to keep open a few breathing holes for the human spirit.”
Because they act as if life were eternal, the great ventilators of the human spirit always feel that they have time to be available to others. You can read their attitude in their faces and postures. The person who is at your disposal turns towards you, tilts a head, bends an ear, lights an eye.
What miracles that simple act of being available can work! All of us remember, almost as moments of grace, occasions when people have released our spirits just by lending us a sympathetic half-hour. Remember the elders who set aside a lot of time to be available to the young generation. Can we forget this sacrifice of theirs?
“Being available” is an attempt to put into English the French word disponibilite, the state of being at one’s disposal. Philosopher Gabriel Marcel, borrowing the word from financiers, who speak of “available funds,” coined this usage to describe a rare human quality. Marcel applied it to people who “open a line of credit” to other persons. We should all do that. Each of us should make available to others not what we own, but what we are.
Availability can be brief, but it must be sincere to ventilate the spirit. We find our casual friends saying, “Call me any time. I’m at your disposal.” But will they be on hand without grudging in your moment of crisis? And will they be there to toast, without envy, your good fortune?
Bored and lazy people have time, but may have little to offer. Time is what they want most, but sadly what they use worst. The people most available to us are often the busiest and most important.
Important, yes, but not self-important. Self – important people equate time with money. They are skeptical in relating with people because they lose time and as a result lose money. Gabriel Marcel noted that often people who are burdened with egos, money or degrees allow no one else to enter their inner worlds. They close themselves off. He called this crispation, to describe people who become crisped like dry autumn leaves.
Nothing “crispates” the soul faster than the delusion that it is too late. This delusion permeates our culture. We are told that “physicists do their most creative work before the age of 30.” Crispation makes us hermits. “There is no time!” we rail, and turn our backs on others and thereby on the future. We miss the best things in the world by fretting about the lack of time.
Time is a system of folds which only death can unfold. For many of us it is difficult to come to terms with time. It takes a sense of eternity to make one realise that there is time, time to be available and to create. When we don’t create we are dead
We are starting a new year. Let this year help us change our attitude towards time and people. Let us begin to say that we have enough time for the people who come to us.
Instead of saying we are limited by time and space, can we say we have time for others, and space for others? It begins in choice, I shall make time! I will not be closed off and crisped.
We must, of course, sometimes close the door to be alone with ourselves: alone with thoughts and books and soul and may be God. For only people with a strong inner core can be usefully available to others. Historian Arnold Toynbee called this “withdrawal and return.” In private hours we become the person who will be usefully available to others. Then we can offer them the gift, not of what we have, but of what we are. Be sure, then, that you have all the time in the world and so be available!

See who’s missing

God keeps on saving people in history. Christmas is the beginning of this salvation history. And so, in turning once again to the episode of Christ’s birth at Bethlehem, we come not to recall Christ’s birth twenty centuries ago, but to live that birth here, in the twenty-first century, this year, in our own Christmas here in India.
The Council says humanity’s mystery can be explained only in the mystery of the God who became human. If people want to look into their own mystery – the meaning of their pain, of their work, of their anxieties, of their suffering, of their hope – let them put themselves next to Christ. If they accomplish what Christ accomplished – doing the Father’s will, filling themselves with the life that Christ gives the world – they are fulfilling themselves as true human beings. If I find, on comparing myself with Christ, that my life is a contrast, the opposite of his, then my life is a disaster.
If what the Council expects of us is true, then, no one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God – for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, the marginalized, the oppressed, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God.
If God has come for the poor and marginalised then all the stuff that our culture identifies with Christmas-the trees, the lights, the shopping, the dinners and Santa himself-may be just a diversion for us. The Christmas trappings are not bad in themselves. But they may distract us from the uncomfortable truth that Christmas isn’t a celebration that the rich and comfortable can fully celebrate.
Christmas for the poor and the humiliated of our world is the beginning of a revolution that lifts them up. Mary our mother had already said why God sent the child she bore: “He has brought down the rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things; but sent away the rich empty handed.” (Luke 1:52-3)
If what Mary said is true, then the hungry kids in Africa have more to celebrate than we do. The children in our slums and rural India have more to celebrate than we do. The poor can rejoice because God so identifies with them, that in Christ God entered the world as one of them. That is the real Christmas. We who are rich and powerful in the world can acknowledge Christmas intellectually, but it isn’t good news for us in the same way.
Our celebration of Christmas can grow richer and more genuine as we identify and accept in ourselves our points of poverty and humiliation. The place of our greatest weakness is the humble stable where Christ can appear in our lives. Christmas shows us that our pain and humiliation are not things to reject but are windows through which God’s love and grace can enter.
God has in his goodness, incarnated himself even to the concrete events of the injustices, tortures, humiliations, rejections of our own sad history. That is where we are to find our God.
Advent time is given to us to remind ourselves that we need to prepare for Christmas. Ample time is given to us by the Church before we could worthily celebrate the birth of the great God amidst the simplest and the poor.
But what are we going to prepare? How are we going to prepare ourselves for Christmas? I am sure there will plans and preparations for clothing, cakes, sweets, decorations and dinner with close friends. In a parish level there might be a greater preparation. There might be an elevating singing with a well trained choir, an elaborate liturgy, and there might even be a mighty crib for baby Jesus.
While all these are needed for an external celebration, do we feel the need for preparing ourselves during this advent by making ourselves simple? Do we include the poor, the simple and the marginalised for whom God planned the incarnation?
But see who is missing! In all our preparations, and later in our celebrations, the poor will be missing. We shouldn’t be surprised if Jesus himself, the protagonist of this great celebration, is missing. It might even turn out to be our celebration setting Jesus aside, to make our celebrations more comfortable and enjoyable. We can never meaningfully celebrate Christmas without including Jesus who is in the poor.Let us carefully see who is missing in

“Ephphatha” “ Be opened”

“Ephphatha” – “Be opened” These were the repeated words in the homily of Pope Benedict XVI, which he delivered at Sunday mass on September 10, delivered before an estimated 250,000 people in Munich.

The Gospel reading he used, speaks of Jesus’s healing of a man born deaf and mute. Jesus is concerned for the suffering, those pushed to the margins of society. He obviously points out the goal of all our activity: “ To speak of God is to speak of society.”

There is not only a physical deafness which largely cuts people off from social life; there is also a ‘hardness of hearing’ where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own times. In other words, we are no longer able to hear God – there are too many different frequencies filling our ears. Along with this disability we are no longer able to converse with him and to him. We risk losing our inner senses.

Jesus’s healing the deaf man by saying “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” might be of a distant past; He continues to do the same thing, even today. At our Baptism he touched each of us and said “Ephphatha” – “Be opened”. He says the same thing for the salesians and the members of the salesian family today, “Ephphatha” – “Be opened,” through the call of the Rector Major to start afresh from Don Bosco and to be open to hear Don Bosco and the young.

We are no longer able to hear Don Bosco and the young. We are too busy with our own plans for ourselves and our institutions while the institutions meant for the young are hardly open for the young.

Pope in his homily said, “ Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable.” Surprisingly Don Bosco and the young are inseparable. That is why he had as his motto: Da Mihi Animas Cetera Tolle - Give me Souls and take away the rest. Don Bosco was willing to give all his time and energy for the poor boys. A great driving force indeed!

At a time when the west is stagnant with regard to vocations to salesian life, the call of the Rector Major comes as the words of Jesus, “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” to all of us, the members of the salesian family in South Asia.

People in Africa and Asia admire the scientific and technical prowess of the west. At the same time they are frightened of the controlling rationality behind that outward elegance. When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little. All too quickly the mechanisms of violence and evil take over. We need to give to the young the peace and tranquility that a serene interior life can offer. The call of the Rector Major compels us to extend our support to the young who really need God and Don Bosco back.

We, the salesian family, just celebrated the centenary of the arrival of Salesians to India. We are happy about the achievements in terms of technical advancement and the infrastructural development and yet we need to achieve much in terms of the spirituality and the meaning system of the young who are so promising and yet so weak in nature.

Time is right for us to reach out to the remotest corners of the earth. Let us reaffirm this commitment we have for Don Bosco and for the young. Let all our inner sensibilities be opened for this call. “Ephphatha” – “Be opened”