Assurance & Insurance

SRI NIMISHANANDA





Hope eggs us on. How else could we face life's ups and downs?
Daily , we come face-to-face with joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, success and failure, acceptance and rejection, birth and death. Yet, we do try to be cheerful, hoping that something good is going to happen that will make life more meaningful, ushering in happiness and peace. Even though nothing is assured, we go on with life, taking this assurance for granted.We promise people that we will meet them on a particular date and generally give assurances.Sometimes we do tend to think, “What if something goes wrong?“ When this sudden negative thought occurs, based on assumptions and presumptions, we tend to find ways to insure ourselves against each and everything, including our very life. Ironically , we create a paradox. On the one hand, we confidently give assurances for tomorrow and for months ahead. On the other hand, we are strongly motivated to take an insurance cover for almost everything including life as if tomorrow is uncertain.
We pay high premiums and stay poor so that after we die, our heirs can benefit. Scriptures talk about how to use our body , mind and soul to achieve prosperity , peace, contentment, acceptance, wisdom and eternal bliss. Sages assure us that all of us have a divine, immortal soul. No `insurance' can give us such an `assurance'.This knowledge assures us and fills us with confidence and faith and acts as insurance against fear and disbelief.

When Miracles Happen Out Of The Blue

Marguerite Theophil





A poster i recently read got me thinking. It said: “The grass is always greener where you water it.“ I thought of what some people speak of as miracles, and some call luck; both groups refer to something desired but kind-of-unexpected. In both instances, one feels a bit surprised. What is often ignored is the `background' to the actual lucky event or miracle.Of course miracles sometimes do hit us seemingly out of the blue ­ that's why we call them miracles. If we believe or have some faith, then we tend to notice these small or big miracles. If we don't, or even are pessimistic, it is all too easy to overlook them when they do happen.But there is an element of what in modern books we read as: “Believe it and you will see it“, or “Just act as if“.
A Taoist master was approached by members of a village, during a time of great drought. They confessed trying many other approaches before reaching out to him, but with no success, so they now asked if he could help bring rain to their dry fields.
The master agreed, and asked for a small hut with a garden that he could tend. For three days, he tended the garden. Much to the surprise of the villagers, he performed no special rituals, chanted no particular prayers, or needed anything more from them. All he did was to plant seeds and carefully work on his garden.
On the fourth day , rain began to fall on the parched earth.
When asked how he had achieved such a miracle, the master simply smiled. It was left to the villagers to later recall and recount how, even in that dry spell, he had lovingly cared for the garden as if he expected the rainwater to come and complete his task.
Many people consider themselves to be either lucky or unlucky . But, these words, attributed to Roman philosopher Seneca are worth a second thought: “Luck is what happens when prepared ness meets opportunity .“
Good luck like good faith works much in the same way as bad luck or lack of faith.
During a terrible flood a pious man trapped on a rooftop prayed fervently and expressed strong conviction that God himself would rescue him. He refused offers of help, telling a neighbour, then a boatman and finally a helicopter rescue team that a bigger power ­ God himself ­ had promised to save him. In the end the waters rose above him and he drowned. Meeting God in the afterlife he expressed his deep disappointment that despite his unshakable faith, God seemed to have let him down, and God tenderly reminded him that He had sent not one but three of his representatives to rescue the poor, foolish man.
So-called lucky people generate their own good fortune or miracles mainly by being attentive to subtler signs and opportunities. They listen to their intuition as well as logically analyse things when making decisions. They create self-fulfilling prophesies through fostering positive expectations. They don't allow disappointment or slowness in getting results to make them give up ­ and they generously become conduits of miracles that benefit others.
Choosing to live with wise faith in things not seen, not proven, and not guaranteed ­ we replace the limited and predictable and tap into the unlimited power of the possible.

Karma Sanyasa: State Of Supreme Culmination

Shri Shri Anandamurti





What is action or karma, and what is its cardinal spirit? The relative change of position of objects is termed karma. This can never be performed beyond the periphery of time, space and person.The relative change of place of objects presupposes the very existence of time, space and person. Karma sanyasi is cardinal spirit of action. The word sanyasa is derived from the terms sam or sat and nyasa. Sat refers to the unchangeable Entity . Sanyasa implies one's total identification with that unchangeable Entity .
Karma sanyasa is possible only when each factor of time, space and person comes within the scope of actual relationship with the subjective bearing; that is, time factor with the eternal Entity , space with the all-pervading Entity and the personal factor with the Supreme shelter. That is why karma sanyasa is a state of supreme culmination.
It is the natural rule of the universe that those who possess immense knowledge are quite conscious of their intellectual limitations, whereas people with superficial knowledge think just the opposite. The genuine way of learning for seekers of knowledge is to consider always that they know nothing.
You can execute ordinary types of work with your own little intellect. But if you aspire to undertake any noble ventures, then you have to unite your own intellect with Cosmic Intellect, and work with the help of the Supreme knowledge of Parama Purusha.
As the evolutionary process pr As the evolutionary process proceeds usually from crude towards the subtle, to make your own intellect subtle, take ideation of the subtlest entity not to remain engrossed in crude objects. With constant ideation of the Supreme, the mind will gradually attain more and more subtlety and will ultimately be converted into the subtlest entity . After this, the sense of separation in the microcosm ceases to exist, and it becomes one with the Cosmic Mind.
When the unit intellect arrives at this highest point, it becomes one with Supreme Intellect.
When Supreme Conscious ness remains in His original stance, He is called Para Brahmn. But when that Para Brahmn is transmuted into different ideas or objects, then Supreme Consciousness is termed Apara Brahmn. Attachment towards Apara Brahmn is called aparabhakti, and intense love for Para Brahmn is called parabhakti.Karma sanyasa is only possible for those people whose goal of life is Para Brahmn. When the mind leaves all objects and es towards the Supreme Entity , that's races towards the Supreme Entity , that's bhakti. When spiritualists move towards the Supreme their minds are unknowingly and gradually transformed. A caterpillar does not know when it changes into a butterfly . Similarly, the mind of a spiritualist does not know how it changes; one day it simply realises that it is not longer a unit mind. When one's individual and personal feelings are completely removed from the mind, at that moment one begins to advance, and the Supreme State is attained.
The spiritualist should adopt exactly the same sort of loving attitude as Parama Purusha has for His children. You should also cultivate this kind of love towards society which is the offspring of Paramatma, and according to natural law, you will certainly attain this love, for it is totally natural. There is no other way to attain Paramatma than to render selfless service to the world.

Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 51, Issue No. 26-27, 25 Jun, 2016

Review of Rural Affairs

Migration, Bachelorhood and Discontent among the Patidars

Alice Tilche

Inequality in Rural Nagaland

Andreas Küchle

Village Restudies

Edward Simpson

Non-farm Diversification, Inequality and Mobility in Palanpur

Himanshu, Bhavna Joshi, Peter Lanjouw

Agrarian Transformation and the New Rurality in Western Uttar Pradesh

Satendra Kumar

Revisiting the Rural in 21st Century India

Surinder S Jodhka

F G Bailey's Bisipara Revisited

Tina Otten, Edward Simpson

Land, Labour and Power

Tommaso Sbriccoli

Web Exclusives

Students Lampooned and the Bihar Board Lurks

Ajay Kr Sharma

The Sacred Waters of a Tanker

P Sainath

Notes

Data for Research into Health Inequality in India

Nandita Saikia, P M Kulkarni

Perspectives

Ambivalence of Citizenship in Assam

Anupama Roy

Book Reviews

Enabling Financial Inclusion

S Mahendra Dev

The Left beyond Marxism

Pratyush Chandra

Politics of the Womb

Asha Achuthan

Postscript

The Ignoble Comparison

Arvind Krishnaswamy

From Polls to Trolls

C S Venkiteswaran

Four Rubaiyat

Nabina Das

Last Lines

Economic Notes

Estimates of High GDP Growth for 2015-16

J Dennis Rajakumar

Special Articles

Sustainable Development as Environmental Justice

Nupur Chowdhury

From Feudalism to State Developmentalism

Yogesh Snehi

Lineage Ownership to Individual Rights

M A Kalam

Migrants and the City

Street Dwelling and City Space

Debarati Bagchi

Recycling the Urban

Iman Kumar Mitra

Homeless Migrants in Mumbai

Manish K Jha, Pushpendra KUMAR

Sleepless in Mumbai

Mouleshri Vyas

Migrant and the Neo-liberal City

Ranabir Samaddar

Uniform civil code: Take all stakeholders on board

The government’s request to the Law Commission for a report on the uniform civil code comes on the trail of many related developments over the past several years. Last year the Supreme Court had said that divorced Muslim women were legally entitled to maintenance from their former husbands under Indian law. The Supreme Court had also nudged the Centre, asking it to take a quick decision on the code. Before that, in 2011 the Delhi High Court had turned down a Muslim man’s appeal that he could not be compelled to pay maintenance to his former wife because the law in question did not apply to the Muslims.

These developments are to be seen in the overall context of the Constitution’s Directive Principles of State Policy, which enjoins upon the State to have a uniform civil code. The BJP, which is in power at the Centre now, has been making this demand for nearly 30 years. But there are some issues connected with this. When the Constitution came into force, while separate electorates were abolished in pursuance of the goal of national integration, enough safeguards were kept for protecting religious and linguistic minorities and their religious and cultural rights. With that in view, successive governments at the Centre remained aloof from this. Another thing to be kept in mind is that having the uniform civil code does not concern the largest minority, the Muslims, alone. There are communities that have their own civil laws and customs on marriage, divorce, adoption, maintenance and succession.

But now there are visible signs of change, with advocacy groups of various religious communities asking for a uniform civil code. About 200 Muslim men, including the film personality Resul Pookutty, have lent support to the demand of 50,000 Muslim women that the triple talaq system of divorce be rescinded. In doing so, they have lent support to an organisation called Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, a Muslim women’s advocacy group, which is campaigning against triple talaq. This proves that Muslim men and women have entered an area that was the happy hunting ground of public intellectuals. The government, however, should move cautiously in the matter because this is after all a touchy subject and so can be emotive.

Source: Hindustan Times, 2-07-2016

Naga framework agreement remains an inside job between the signatories

Isak Chishi Swu will be interred today at his village of Chishilimi, north of Kohima, the capital of Nagaland. This will formally end a weeklong mourning for the chairman of the Isak-Muivah faction of National Socialist Council of Nagalim, the largest Naga rebel group, and the largest rebel group in India after Communist Party of India (Maoist).

What happens now to the framework agreement for peace that this rebel organisation signed with the Government of India last August?

Several things, and all were in play even before Swu died in a New Delhi hospital on June 28, aged 87, for all purposes chaperoned by the government, with which NSCN (I-M) fought a bitter war till 1997. A ceasefire took hold that year.

It has always been an uneasy ceasefire, and an uneasy year since the framework agreement was signed.

The faction chaired by Swu and his colleague and real power centre, Thuingaleng Muivah — the M in I-M — the Ato-kilonser, or prime minister to Swu’s Yaruiwo, has continually trained, recruited and rearmed. Its headquarters at Camp Hebron — landmarks of this group that mixes Christianity, socialist ardour, and brute power have biblical references — hosts much of its army and administration, the Government of the People’s Republic of Nagalim. It’s a short drive southwest of Dimapur, Nagaland’s commercial hub.

Flags here proclaim Nagalim: A light-blue background striped with red, yellow and green, and topped by a white six-pointed star of Bethlehem. Clocks proclaim Nagalim Time. Thus far it’s Indian Standard Time, but Nagalim maps an idealistic geography that includes, besides Naga homelands in Myanmar, all of Nagaland, Naga homelands in vast areas of Manipur, and handsome slices of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. Nagalim remains on the agenda for negotiations.

From here NSCN (I-M) runs a parallel administration from across all Naga areas in India. Personnel intercede in development projects and elections. Such “national workers” monitor the flow of funds that Naga citizens — even government officials — and businesses operating in Nagaland contribute every month, quarter or year. It makes a mockery of the governments of India and Nagaland, and has co-existed because an uneasy peace with occasional skirmishing is seen as better than war.

While Swu increasingly focused on prayer, Muivah focused on building and maintaining the organisation, and appointing loyalists to key posts. It’s an organisation with an estimated 5,000 armed cadres, with some numbers in camps in Myanmar — preparatory ground in case the framework peace agreement heads south.

Because it could.

NSCN (I-M) is only one faction. There are breakaways of the original NSCN formed in 1980, and several breakaways of the original NSCN (I-M), besides pale shadows of organisations like the once-overarching Naga National Council led by Angami Zapu Phizo. (That iconic leader in various degrees helmed Naga nationalist interests from 1929 till his death in 1990.)

These factions are in various stages of ceasefire and neutrality with government of India, but are not signatories to NSCN (I-M)’s August 2015 agreement. Certainly not the K or SS Khaplang faction of NSCN — die-hard enemies of I-M — which broke away from a 14-year ceasefire with the government in March 2015. Based in Myanmar, Khaplang read the wind drifting I-M’s way and opted to secure his base in Myanmar while still foraying into Nagaland. Till it broke ceasefire, NSCN (K) like all other groups maintained camps designated by government of India. All groups attempt to strenuously mirror the commanWhile the leaders of all groups, even Khaplang, have eulogised Swu and spoken of the nobility of the Naga cause — including legitimate anger at genocide against the Naga people sanctioned by India’s government — the sobering truth is that there can be no lasting Naga solution without reconciliation among Naga factions. Or, they are neutralised as to be made toothless.

Leaders and cadres of these rebel groups also need to be ‘mainstreamed’ within the Naga structure variously in politics, administration, some in paramilitaries, others pensioned off or provided seed money to fund businesses, and younger cadres provided retraining or education. A gesture has been made. On June 15, all legislators of Nagaland offered to resign en masse to pave that way.

The dynamics are further complicated by inevitable leadership struggles in all rebel structures. For instance, Muivah is 82. A power play within NSCN (I-M) has been the talk for at least two years. Disarray may provide plum pickings for India, but if a next-gen leader perceives greater power and influence in a state of continuing conflict, he will choose it.

Moreover, Nagalim is more than Naga perspectives. Take Manipur, particularly the perspective of plains-dwelling Meitei (the Nagas, Kukis and other tribes occupy the hills, 90% of the territory). Many Meitei leaders suspect that an ongoing hills-versus-plains stand-off is pure I-M, and underwritten by the Indian government. This feeling is sharpened by the fact that several I-M leaders, including Muivah, are of Naga tribes in Manipur, and could logically look to secure a power base here. This is plausible if seen through the complex lens of tribalism. Muivah is Tangkhul, a tribe with its homeland in Manipur’s Ukhrul district. He is seen by many in Nagaland as an outsider. Swu, who was Sema (or Sumi), from ancestral lands in Zunheboto district in Nagaland, provided Muivah a veneer of acceptability that is now somewhat diminished.d and control structure of NSCN (I-M). Imagine this crossfire of administration.

And finally, the framework agreement remains for all practical purposes an inside job between the signatories. The public and other players remain in the dark. In effect, there is little beyond two signatures and stated intentions to move forward. Nagaland’s future, and that of much of its neighbourhood, depends on this rubble-strewn road where all travelers will need to behave like saints.

Sudeep Chakravarti is the author of several books, including Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land, a commentator on issues related to conflict, a columnist, and consultant to think-tanks

Source: Hindustan Times, 4-07-2016

Your Good Deeds Are Your Best Friends

Ezekiel Isaac Malekar





A certain man had three friends: two of whom he loved dearly , the other he but lightly esteemed. It happened one day that the king commanded his presence at court, at which he was greatly alarmed, and wished to procure an advocate. He went to the two friends, whom he loved. One flatly refused to accompany him, the other offered to go with him as far as the king's gate, but no farther. Desperate, he called upon the third friend, whom he least esteemed; and that friend not only went willingly with him, but also so ably defended him before the king that he was honourably acquitted.Similarly , every man has three friends, when Death summons him to appear before the Creator. His friend, whom he loves most, namely his money , cannot go with him a single step; his second, relations and neighbours, can only accompany him up to the cremation burial ground, but cannot defend him before the Judge, while his third friend, whom he does not highly esteem ­ his good deeds ­ go with him before the king, and obtain his acquittal.This story is narrated by Joseph Hertz in his Daily Prayer Book.
Hayim Halberstem said, “In my youth, I thought to convert the youth, I thought to convert the whole world to God. But soon, I discovered that it would be enough to convert the people who lived in my town; and I tried that for a time, but did not succeed. I realised that my programme was still too ambitious and I concentrated on the persons in my household.I could not convert them either.Finally it dawned on me. I must work upon myself, so that I may give true service to God, but i did not accomplish even this.“
Often, our good ideas and objectives are dissipated because of more alluring alternatives that present themselves before us, using up our limited time, energy and resources. The irony is that the pursuit of noble and worthy aims seldom carries with it financial gains. So we often are tempted and change our course of action and replace our intentions with more `profitable' activities.
The greatest legacy , footprints on the sands of time, that one can leave behind are a trail of good deeds, which alone can justify one's mortal existence. The habit of procrastination kills good intentions. It takes a strong will, inspiration and great enthusi asm to start any enterprise and more so for an understanding of that which is of spiritual value rather than of material value.material values are not to be But material values are not to be despised since these may be harnessed to ethical objectives. The moment a good intention is born, it must be executed immediately . What is the point of good intention if it is not executed?
Each person is an artist that creates his own personality . His character creates the image that he presents to others. By our own deeds and thoughts, we can make this image of infinite beauty or we can make it ugly. Before it is too late, let us make good deeds our best friend.
“A man is known by three names.The first is the name which his parents give him; the second is the name by which others call him, and the third is the name by which he is identified in the true record of his life, from Birth to Death.“ ­ Midrash (The writer is priest and honorary secretary , Judah Hyam Synagogue, New Delhi.)