Durga Puja

Today is Bijoya or Vijaya Dashami!

This is what I have known this day by since my childhood. It culminates the Durga Puja celebrations. The period, Durga Puja, seems like an era for any bengali - an era of happiness, smiles, fun. It is a year-long wait to assemble, return to the family, gift the loved ones. After the idol of Maa Durga is immersed in the evening, we take the blessings of our elders by touching their feet. Though Rasogolla is the "cult" sweet dish but on this day "jalebi" is served as a ritual. I could hardly reason as long as it is sweet. Then the next day, fish is to be prepared (how could we leave that???).

Being not at home with your near ones is a painful thing. The memories flash in the mind and prick. The excitement during puja at your native/childhood place can never be redeemed by attending puja at some other place. Why is it...the Durga is same everywhere...All Gods are after all same? Perhaps it is not about the Goddess only but us also. The puja is symbolic to integrate family members, friends and the whole social infrastructure. The evocation of the Goddess evokes our own self, the conscience, the good sense and it keeps it powered untill next year.

The demon (Mahisasura) was notorious and had immense power and thought himself to be invincible. We humans are mortals but still we forget it and presume ourselves as the master. Vainity, jealousy, hatred are all demons within us. It needs to be washed with modesty, selflessness, love and sacrifice. If there is a Mahisasura within us then only Durga can annihilate him. Durga is not the idol we pray but the divine reflection in our hearts.

A tribute

An endless saga of Terrorism had struck hearts and minds of India ceaslessly. We pay a tribute to all those innocent lives lost while fighting this evil and the Soldiers who fought with valour.

A Unique case of morality!!!

Once a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.

Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

From a theoretical point of view, it is not important what the participant thinks that Heinz should do. Kohlberg's theory holds that the justification the participant offers is what is significant, the form of their response. Below are some of many examples of possible arguments that belong to the six stages:

Stage one (obedience): Heinz should not steal the medicine because he will consequently be put in prison which will mean he is a bad person. Or: Heinz should steal the medicine because it is only worth $200 and not how much the druggist wanted for it; Heinz had even offered to pay for it and was not stealing anything else.

Stage two (self-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he will have to serve a prison sentence. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because prison is an awful place, and he would probably languish over a jail cell more than his wife's death.

Stage three (conformity): Heinz should steal the medicine because his wife expects it; he wants to be a good husband. Or: Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing is bad and he is not a criminal; he tried to do everything he could without breaking the law, you cannot blame him.

Stage four (law-and-order): Heinz should not steal the medicine because the law prohibits stealing, making it illegal. Or: Heinz should steal the drug for his wife but also take the prescribed punishment for the crime as well as paying the druggist what he is owed. Criminals cannot just run around without regard for the law; actions have consequences.

Stage five (human rights): Heinz should steal the medicine because everyone has a right to choose life, regardless of the law. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because the scientist has a right to fair compensation. Even if his wife is sick, it does not make his actions right.

Stage six (universal human ethics): Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a human life is a more fundamental value than the property rights of another person. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because others may need the medicine just as badly, and their lives are equally significant.

Karmic Sense

"I am the owner of my karma.
I inherit my karma.
I am born of my karma.
I am related to my karma.
I live supported by my karma.
Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit."

- Gautam Buddha

Moksha in life and after life...

Death perhaps is the only certainty in this world. Yet, the fear of death stalks most people. Literature - western and Indian - regards the fear of death as an intriguing and ubiquitous part of human life. We know we are mortals, yet we are afraid of the inevitable. We know we will die one day; yet we continue to behave as though we believe we are going to live forever.

People are frightened of death, which is after all an end that comes when it will.

A similar spirit pervades the renowned dialogue between the Yaksha and Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata. When the Yaksha asked him what is the greatest surprise, Yudhishthira replied that so many people die everyday. Yet, human beings want to somehow avoid death. That, he said, was truly surprising. However, for people of knowledge, for the wise, death is the door to liberation, the passage to moksha.

Moksha is the conscious concern of those who strive for freedom from bondage. Their goal is not more security or pleasure; it is to achieve freedom from all desire. Moksha is the end of all desire leading to freedom from the cycle of birth and death.

Of the four purusharthas moksha is the noblest. The other three are dharma, artha and kama. Moksha, however, is the goal of the wise. For many, liberation becomes the goal only when the limitations of the other three purusharthas are realised. But by then it is too late. We spend all our lives in the pursuit of pleasure, wealth and fame. Finally, we realise that nothing gives us fulfilment. The joy is momentary, proving that our efforts were futile, unsatisfactory and incomplete. True joy lies in completeness and limitlessness, the path to liberation. Moksha ensures liberation from all limitations that bind human beings.

Man's constant struggle to achieve happiness through acquiring security and pleasure is bound to fail, for, these efforts are generally misdirected. This is because the nature of the fundamental problem is not understood fully. The road to freedom from limitations is to be found only in the correct knowledge of one's true nature as that which is absolute.

Without motivation self-realisation needed for attainment of moksha cannot be achieved. But how to prepare for moksha?

The first step is to develop self-control. This will lead to freedom from attachment to objects. A real seeker of moksha has to be a sanyasi. However, it is not necessary to renounce the world to be a sanyasi. All one has to do is switch off mental preoccupations with objects of the world. Living amidst worldly objects without feeling attached to them is true vairagya.

The second step is the abandonment of aham, the thought of 'I'. One must come to live in one's own divine nature. Indifference to objects of the senses, to feelings of pain and pleasure and also absence of egoism helps make the mind steady. The Bhagavad Gita calls this state sthitapragya. This is the crucial state for attaining moksha.

“O build your ship of death...

O build it now, for you will need it,

for the voyage of oblivion awaits you।”