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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Kamal and TMK

Kamal does many things with hidden agenda, ulterior  motives etc. However he is entitled to his view of things.  

The only problem is when people like him and TMK resort to misuse platforms which are accessible otherwise only to a few but well received by many for various reasons. 

No one is immune to hypocrisies 



But these two use them to project and promote ideologically whatever fits into their confirmation bias and the worst part is even that is selectively done. 


Humility and Grace

The connect between grace and humility. Not desperation or demand.

Human beings’ unwillingness and uneasiness to have humility 



Grace as explained and experienced by some enlightened souls




http://www.ishafoundation.org/blog/yoga-meditation/history-of-yoga/how-grace-works/

A.P.J.Abdul Kalam


A.P.J.Abdul Kalam


I remember reading a wonderful book of essays on Mahatma Gandhi when I was in 9th std from a book which I got as a prize in Ramakrishna Mission School. One particular essay always remained etched in my memory and one of the few writers whose name I never forgot because of just two paragraphs he wrote about Gandhi. It was Stephen Hobhouse. The book was ‘The first Mahatma Gandhi Essays and Reflections on his life and works Presented to him on his Seventieth Birthday October 2, 1939 Edited By : S. Radhakrishnan, our former president Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
The essay in all editions of different publishers to my memory has remained on Page 80 [ probably because only by that age we realize the value of certain souls] title of the essay was ‘THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GANDHI FOR THE OUTLOOK OF A CHRISTIAN PACIFIST By Stephen Hobhouse, M.A. (Broxbourne, Herts, England)

“However objective our religion or philosophy may appear to be, each of us human beings who is able to reflect and to aspire has had to construct a world of his own out of materials set before him by the mysterious, unknown environment wherein he finds himself. Within this universe of our consciousness there are certain objects— forces, qualities, ideals, or persons we call them— which stir with a strange and moving attraction the central fibres of our nature, our heart and our reason; and there comes to us in our better moments a constant longing to know them, to love them, to identify ourselves with them more and more completely, ever seeking to liberate ourselves from the trivial and inessential, the unlovely and the impure. Other minds may find much of this central attraction in the creations of human art or even in the subtle correspondences of scientific process. I am one of the many who find it chiefly in the inexpressible wonder and beauty of personality, as imagined in its perfection of life through the best and loveliest men and women who cross our path whether in the flesh or in books, as well as in an indefinable sense of the same personal wonder and beauty breathed upon us from visible nature, in sky and earth and living things, when her moods and ours possess the inner harmony that brings peace. And from these two centres of my highest experience I am inescapably drawn to a faith in that which we call God, to an experiment in discovering and testing an infinite super-personal yet supremely personal and supremely beneficent Being, who is at once the source and the goal of all the separate centres of life and beauty which within and around me strive for liberation and expression. Unhappily, too, I am equally conscious of dark, destructive elements of ugliness and discord, which with an evil activity of their own mar the growth of harmonious life. These forces seem to some extent to be present in external nature, but, inasmuch as the courageous human soul has a marvellous capacity for overcoming or neutralizing the hostility of nature, they are far more dangerous enemies as present within the hearts of men, and within my own heart in particular. Unaided I too often lose faith and am all but helpless before the demonic power of these evil tendencies; and I must turn for aid and liberation to a closer fellowship of spirit with some other personality, human or divine. Providence has ordained that I have been born and bred in a community where past and present have united in confronting me with the historic figure of Jesus Christ, as supremely incarnating the infinite Personality which seems to live at the heart of all that is good and beautiful. Thought and prayer and the influences of a still vigorous tradition, sanctified by the wisdom of antiquity and now, as perhaps never before, becoming purified of alien accretions, have convinced me that this historic person holds a position at the heart of the Godhead and the universe, as no other human figure, no other avatar or incarnation of the Divine can do. The same Spirit lives with a lesser but still splendid pre-eminence in other human personalities, in many doubtless who have left behind them no recorded memory, in some souls whose memory is preserved as the bright and shining lights of our race's history. A fewdark patches indeed there may be on their radiance, but these dim its beneficence but little. I think of them all as messengers and prophets of the eternal Christ, even though some among them would not or could not acknowledge Him as Lord and God. Of these historic light-bearers, one of the greatest of all time, so it seems to me, is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the prophet of ahims-satyagraha. Certainly he is the greatest that has appeared in our own day. The decay of ancient faiths and moralities, the tyranny of the machine, the evil use of applied science made by the misguided industrialists and militarists whose control we support or at least endure, have, in spite of recent revelation of many new and lovely aspects of truth, produced I n world history an unexampled crisis. It is even conceivable that civilization or, since that word is an ambiguous one, orderly, kindly, enlightened human society, as the more fortunate know it to-day, may perish more completely than ever before in the universal confusion and destruction of strife engendered by the lawless selfseeking of human desires and passions. I have sent myself in the essay to try to explain how it is that Gandhi’s great and closely related ideals of ahimsa and satyagraha appear to me to present the only means by which salvation and redemption, healing and true life, can come to the sorely distracted and diseased environment in which we find ourselves.

Now this book is available free on net http://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/mgessaysandreflections.pdf

Monday, July 27, 2015

Concretizing the concepts of value based life, heritage, meaningful education and proper use of science and technology

“Value orientation missing from education system” and

“Alarming gap within developing world has to be bridged”, avers Dr. Karan Singh MP of India. He has once again spoken very sensibly raising certain important issues. Read report of his speech here

These issues are, more frequently, cropping in general discussions in various forums in myriad forms and I too, have been putting forth relentlessly reams of reasons or at least verbal expressions of my observations, thoughts, reactions etc.

Evolution of our species seems to be going through some sort of churning process which makes people in different spheres of activity voice similar concerns.

However, I being a very ordinary person wonder how are we going to inculcate certain inevitable aspects and activities which are going to ensure concretizing the concepts that these scholars visualize and also have been very vocal about like- continuation of certain well cherished and time tested values of wisdom; respect for rich heritage; education geared towards unraveling the meaning of life encompassing knowing, doing, unity and being; science which contributes to humane values in collaboration with other aspects of living etc?

Are there any specific ways, methods, new art or science which have to be introduced to ensure these?  No not necessary.
They have to be part and parcel of our approach, attributes, attitudes and actions of life because what I call UN activities, as most human activities are, wherein U stands for Urge and N stands for Necessity.


               The main things that he talks about are:-

1.    Values that have been neglected  we need to find out two things here what we mean by values and how they can be made to be part of our day to day living and he goes on to weave a relevance how it is all the more sad because many  values were very much part of our rich heritage. It they were so, then why and what or who led to the degradation or what are the reasons for that?


2.    Then he goes about talking about education. Again what is education or what are the probable aspects of education? What is the role and responsibilities of all the stakeholders?



3.    He then goes on to portray his ambivalent views on science, as it is for most  people due to the extraordinary predominance in terms of importance given to science over all other domains of human activity. 

      But we need to honestly and humble observe why it is so. It is because of its overwhelming impact both positive and negative. We need to remember that science is neither a panacea nor should it be projected as a villain. If at all anything science has been a greater contributor to the enhancement of life and civilization’s advancement than any other facet of living. 

     But for science and rational thinking presence of sanity would have got postponed or prohibited everywhere. If its negative aspects have been used or the science itself has been misused in some instances that does not make it any less valuable or important or relevant. For that matter what about the negative impacts of religions or misuses in the name of religions , impacts and misuses of political ideologies, economic systems etc.

SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY
                             or
http://www.scribd.com/doc/101198033/Science-and- Spirituality

Worse still, the conflict is projected as Humanity versus    Technology as technology has become the predominant manifestation of science and permeating into every aspect of life. No wonder there are important conferences with the theme Claiming Our Humanity — Managing in the Digital Age’ are conducted 




4.    Our rich heritage

No one ever questions that; even the avowed enemies of Bharat cannot do that because our heritage is indeed something that we all can be very proud of but why it has lost its relevance. Can we resurrect it by merely repeating it? Won’t we be labeled as ethnocentric by constantly claiming we have one of the greatest heritages? If that is a fact why we need to keep reminding everyone about it every now and then?


Saturday, July 25, 2015

Relationships and values

Refrain of the poetry of  life and relationships.

Life is universal energy manifested through various vibrations.

Every vibration of every action or reaction or situation is based on relationship i.e. how we relate to/with other persons and things and every relationship is based on reciprocation.

I feel in the ultimate analysis everything is about how we relate with others, with things, with ideologies, with various identities, with the whole environment etc that is going to determine our role and relevance in the world and in our own life. 

The poetry of life and relationship in general has some inherently important, interesting and inevitable refrain. They are broadly as given below and therefore during the course of this write up they may be repeated often:-

1. That everyone and everything is interconnected, inter related and interdependent in at least some aspects and with varying degrees of intensity.

2. Everything must be evaluated based on contextual relevance and contribution to life as a whole [which implies the whole physical environment as well as psychological and social environment].

3. Every aspect of life has its own intrinsic and inherent attributes/merits which must be smoothly aligned with life and its myriad relationships through proper attitudes.

It is preferable to immerse any topic or subject matter, primarily and basically with its intrinsic elements/components/aspects/attributes intact, into a cauldron which has a mixture of all these- knowledge based analysis, limited perception based on frames of reference and scales of observation, skepticism , criticism, intellectual scrutiny, compassionate emotionalism, humane socialism, rational thinking, contextual relevance [ which includes too many components] , traditions, practical viability, psychological comfort, aesthetic sensitivity, scientific scrutiny etc and churn the cauldron without clinging on to any particular restrictive social, cultural or political or religious identity.

This process inevitably will bring out lot of outputs. We can exercise our freedom and sometimes select and choose some of the outputs. Sometimes the outputs will draw us.

Sometimes away from all or any of our intended searches and seeking, outside the circle of these known paradigms, almost tangentially serendipity will drag us to an oasis of serene clarity.

At all costs the intrinsic attributes must be the predominant factor so that whatever is thrown into the cauldron and however it is churned, the ultimate output must include those attributes so that evaluation is not distorted or desperately doctored to fit into any predefined and expected outcome.

So what pans out ultimately depends on various factors and aspects some of which are explainable within the ken of logical and rational thinking but some are beyond these.

We can also observe uneasily how the human intellect polished by a rare faculty [compared to other species] of conscious awareness, capacity to think, store the knowledge, retrieve it for reference etc, is mostly, unwilling to take the risk of accepting the uncertain; the intellectually undecipherable and the inexplicable outcomes, even if such acceptance is branded, extolled and promoted as virtues of humility or modesty.

All said and done life has to be enjoyed through living and relationships have to be experienced in the churning process of life. We cannot mask them with any mumbo- jumbo or avoid them through any other means, imaginations, dreams etc however well packaged or marketed or sanctified they may be.

What is happening to relationships now?

Unfortunately, to use the commercial jargon, there is a paradigm shift in viewing relationship by some people of the present generation.

They compartmentalize relationship into different categories. They categorize relationship on a graph as useful, usable, allowing to be used and proportionately their different relationships get disturbed, degraded and destroyed. The more and more they allow themselves to be used for something by someone then it can gradually lead to depression and can at times even become deadly.

They think if betrayal can benefit why not give a kick to gratitude. They have no qualms about placing selfish personal comforts and gratifications over everything else.

That’s why relationships are researched with more emphasis on the prefixes and/or suffixes that are attached to them like marital relationship, professional relationship, family relationship, emotional relationship, intellectual relationship etc.  

These prefixes /suffixes indicate certain specific situations/contexts and certain elements /aspects/factors which predominate in a relationship. They do not define the totality of a relationship. For example in a professional relationship one may not deal only with purely professional /official matter one will also be concerned about the personal welfare or circumstances either sad or happy one of the other with whom one is professionally engaged. Similarly by emotional relationship it does not mean just any particular emotion but also all other factors that form part of the relationship.

Relationships are not nets meant to get entangled but great networks of connectivity to catch completeness and gain from totality of everything because all are interconnected, inter related and interdependent in at least some aspects and with varying degrees of intensity.

But all relationships irrespective of the prefixes and suffixes they carry are based on certain time tested universal principles and certain humane values, it is these values which are the many facets that give the shine to relationships.

Living with certain humane values in our day to day life is worthier than any other great achievement. We do not need any expertise or special qualification or sanctions to practice these values. For example sentiments of caring and sharing, if not towards all, at least towards people related to us and whom we come across in life is very important because the impact of such values and principles are too tangible, stark and stinging at times.

Even when we are aware of all the components of relationships we cannot either make collages or collations and deal with relationship but as mentioned earlier life carries on its constant churning process through various aspects and unfortunately we are aware of only some aspects because of our selective frames of references and all other limitations.

So we must strive to live by certain positive values that we may have inherited and/or acquired and also try our best to bequeath the same to our children.

Very often people take the route of blaming the circumstances becomes an easy excuse and say because of various sufferings, problems, frustrations, failures etc they could  not lead a  life with certain positive values. Similarly some people who become a little prosperous in their life either in power, pelf or position, they  let everything disappear under their super imposing ego which gets so inflated that they are clouded by a false sense of immortality to external things quiet oblivious of the mortal frame which houses such ego. 

What no one realizes is that we are all after all we have a mortal frame made of biochemical organisms which are bound to decay and die one day and even that like our birth is, in most cases, not chosen by us,  but happens all the same.

Reality is harsh and humbling in many ways. All of us always do what we can, what we want to and what we are destined to do. At times one or some of these things predominate over the rest. But irrespective of any of these three i.e. what we can, want to and destined to do, the platform from which we perform them are our inherent attributes and our attitudes.

Unless these two are tuned properly the frequency at which we may encounter life will be jarring and make us realize things the very harsh way.

So, living with certain humane values at all times preferably with everyone is the best reciprocation we can make to the other souls.







On attitude

ATTITUDE CALENDAR





Thursday, July 23, 2015

Narendra Modi-led government needs more time to show results- rightly says Azim Premji

1.    For 67 long years, we, as a nation were planning to plan to perform to a planned short term goals, gains for the selected few.

2.    There has been a late marriage between governance and government after 60 plus years all of us must wait with patience for delivery of the baby called corruption free economic development.

3.    MODI does not bother and need not bother about any one of these people because he is neither bothered about his ego or next election but the economy in the long term. A very important and relevant priority for the nation with so many youth.

4.    Modi prefers national welfare in terms of economic development which can deliver both long term and sustained benefits through well established institutions of governance without room of much manipulations and corruption.



7.    Reality check and unbiased feedback are two most important factors that can polish any manager or leader much more than a team of ‘yes men’ or ‘ideologically glued bunch of operators’ and it becomes all the more important when there are leaders with great visions, mega dreams, creative ideas and an urgency to carry out everything with a missionary zeal.

8.    Such leaders cannot be expected to pay attention to micro details of execution because then they will lose lot of their focus, energy and time in that. But, unfortunately, very often the team does not think or operate at the same wave length as the leader.




RSS-Note that Modi’s government is going in the direction in performance based, governance oriented and long term economic development focused path.

                            20 point open letter to RSS and BJP because I am part of both
                            and respect RSS and many senior leaders in both BJP and RSS.

1.    We need clarity on contextual relevance and priorities and then carry on our activities based on that.

2.    We need to make foundations strong. Political power and economic empowerment improving the quality of life on all aspects must be the priority and focus on these in the present context than anything else.

3.    So, all interested in the nation’s welfare, especially outfits like RSS, BMS etc must realize that BJP under Modi and team in power is better than Cong & co for India and for themselves. Acknowledge proudly that Modi’s government is going in the direction in performance based, governance oriented and long term economic development focused path.  

4.    Because there has been a late marriage between governance and government after 60 plus years all of us must wait with patience for delivery of the baby called corruption free economic development.

5.    Remember that focusing our energies in ensuring economic development of India as a service is the best incentive and not necessarily any ministerial post.

6.    Also ensure the most important discipline is to discuss differences in appropriate forums rather than in public, media, social media etc.

7.    Enforce on everyone the unwritten rule not to make any irresponsible comments that can be even remotely misinterpreted by the paid media and other such anti-India elements.

8.    Humility to gracefully retire/withdraw from active politics but if possible involve in giving positive guidance to younger generation and groom them within BJP and giving these youngsters prominence as well are more important than going after the blood of certain individuals.

9.    Appeasement of all bigwigs in a big group is difficult and must not hamper activities which are based on vision of prosperous India and Congress Mukt Bharath.

10.We cannot and must not ignore leaders who have represented the party and stood for the party in both the houses of parliament for almost 10 years as opposition leaders facing all the attacks.


11.Don’t try to repeat the mistake of 1979 which made Cong come back to power. I am pained because some outfits are either directly or indirectly responsible for irresponsible AAP coming to power in Delhi.

12.Don’t try to rock the boat of BJP sitting inside just because you think there are some rats or snakes. So, desist from making wild statements about any BJP minister/ member in public.

13.You can directly discuss differences of opinions with concerned authorities within BJP’s many forums. Raise above individual ego fights, in fights, personal animosities and remember everyone however great, intelligent, important etc cannot be accommodated in some government position.

14.Once we are, I am sure we will become, an economic power, and then the whole world will sit up and listen to us. Then we can fill the receptive ears and brains with our great heritage and wisdom and by that time most of the anti-India paid media would also be dead. So, humanity will get to know the good things of India and also benefit from them and in turn we too can benefit from the rest of the world with a broad mind and open heart, unhindered by operators of hidden agenda.

15.Hindu philosophical and ideological concepts need no special marketers because it is about way of life and talks more about art and science of life and living which will eventually get absorbed by many human beings without having to follow any or all rituals or any specific scriptural edicts.

16.No religion or ideology is great because of its numbers but its worthy ideas and tenets which are useful and adoptable for betterment of life.

17.Universal mantras are contextual relevance and everything that provides comfort, convenience; begets benefits and profits; ensures utility, happiness, pleasure etc and evaluating everything or anything based on its inherent attributes/merits and intrinsic value/purpose and most importantly remember that all these are interconnected.


18.Remember if we perform towards economic development and deliver better living conditions for all Indians then we do not need any other publicity or propaganda.

19. Let us remember that success of any venture is because of the sincere performance of all members of the team in appropriate/ different roles. Demanding, clandestinely canvassing for and clamoring for credit and posts must not become part of the culture of RSS or BJP.

20.  Accept that India is diverse in many aspects and as a nation and culture live with and loves that variety. There are many factors which are region specific, activity specific, group or clan attitude specific and trying to expect or enforce uniformity would be repeating the mistake of the West which for centuries together continues conceptualize only homogenizing and thereby exercise control and hegemony in all spheres of life.  

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Universal mantras of Contextual relevance, Evolution and Menstruation

Universal mantras are contextual relevance and everything that provides  comfort, convenience; begets benefits and profits; ensures utility,happiness, pleasure etc and evaluating everything or anything based on its inherent attributes/merits and intrinsic value/purpose.


1.    Ok my first period in the morning is starting with the topic on ‘periods’.

2.    Unfortunately most aspects of traditional practices, rituals, customs etc are forced on us as social obligations [ok no harm in it]. But further energizing the inherently vulnerable hypocrisy and putting forth vocal justifications for not only following them blindly but trying to perpetuate them without any valid reason is bad.

3.   It is these very types of traditional attitudes that we need to address. For example recently one prestigious institute banned girls from wearing sleeveless t-shirts and jeans and there was a huge hue and cry about western influence bla bla. They cleverly diverted the issue. The issue involved was about wearing a dress that covers the body that’s all. I asked the status quo addicts why not go back to times when India had the first most wonderful attire ever, when women were draped in unstitched nine yard sarees without blouses but it served the purpose of covering all parts of the body that needed to be covered but haven’t we moved from that to sarees with blouses to churidhars to nighties. My whole question is why this selective objection that too when it concerns women and their attire.

There are certain universal mantras from which no one can veer away humanity’s preference they are change and the constantly changing context created by that change along with its many concomitant characters like comforts, convenience, benefits, utility, profit, happiness, pleasure etc.
All wisdom and value systems must be woven around these universal mantras or at least relevant to these. Otherwise something else will replace all values, wisdom, principles, practices etc.

The most important wisdom is to make the necessary adjustments to emerging changes and contexts.

4.    ‘Inconvenience’ like many terms is a purely relative terminology based on/proportionate to the level of tolerance /adjustment/compromise one is willing to display,  I mean the areas human beings can exercise their rational choice.

I think we all must be equally aware and have the humility to accept the fact that we all think/presume what we know or claim to know is the best /most perfect or ultimate truth. This precisely means that nothing in any aspect of life as we are aware or we claim to know today is neither perfect nor the ultimate stage nor the finale or the only truth which can be established as the truth with axiomatic certitude.

Like everything in nature, evolution also attempts or has attempted many adventures in its stride some have been a boon while some have been a bane. That’s way when I use the term ‘inconvenience’ I remember G.K. Chesterton’s definition as the best ‘An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered’ 

But I personally feel that any oozing from any part of the body   that too involuntarily [most small children and very old people experience contusion and people who are allergic to many things experience oozing nasal passage as a reaction [excuse me for lack of appropriate medical jargon like liquefied sputum etc] is definitely an inconvenience even though for argument's sake one may wish to give any other nomenclature to it.


And interestingly enough we must acknowledge the fact that we evolved out of our imbibing only certain selective features of that evolutionary adventure and ended up adapting them.

First great biologist Darwin, I would prefer to call him the father of evolutionary biological science-who incidentally advocated the theory of natural selection, because he laid the first blue print for such a specialized study [some of them may be wrong or all of them could be disputed and radically changed], and he had the honesty and humility to declare, “Variation proposes and selection disposes.”

5. I would like to add that in the arena of human species psychologically selection is further influenced by selection bias and bias is conditioned by various factors. For example the mode of communication that we are using now, i.e. the electronic media and internet causes so many  side effects, environmental ill effects , including huge amount of clean water used for manufacture of many components, interference of  electromagnetic waves with many life forms and none of these are either repairable , recyclable or replaceable for posterity but the benefits we derive out of this far outweighs ill effects  that we have preferred to choose this medium over  meeting and talking in person [ which is besides not always possible] which is the least harmful to environment though when we speak it affects the life of certain microbes near over mouths.

Unfortunately and inevitably most of our understanding of science is through the reverse engineering process or dissection analysis or through micro analysis and measurements [because some form of measurement is inevitable]



6.    I will try to address most of the issues raised not in any specific order or issue wise but hap haphazardly so that readers at liberty to collate them as they wish into categories they prefer. I am just writing something like a box of assorted chocolate of different brands as I have taken various comments, taken some vital terms like tradition, practices, rituals, sanitation, carbon, non recyclable material and  most importantly a vast subject like evolution etc to name a few and churning them all to drive my point of view using lots of references which I have enjoyed reading and which have enhanced my knowledge of many aspects of life. I would also be addressing most aspects with very general observations of socio-psychological perceptions and reactions to scientific issues rather than purely scientific facts as such.

7.    For scientific materials I am providing lot of links and references of books which are really useful.

8.    At any cost a male writing about periods is like a mechanic who never owned a car but it is a matter of sensitivity as a human species that prods one to be concerned about it at least to reply to those who never bother about the inconvenience that menstruation causes for women.

9.    I hope all of you have also read this link as well from the same social organization which made me write on this subject first time some years back 

With a picture of Godess Kamakya Of Assam during Menstruation. [Supposedly taken originally]


10. When human intellect resorts to defend or justify, more than define or explore or accept facts for what they are worth, normally it becomes more sharp with additional vindications from very vast allied areas like pollution, carbon etc because the defense is further enforced with adrenal reactions which are all normal as I, myself, am more used to it rather use it more, so I can understand it perfectly well.


11. Socially certain societies, why most human societies, are groomed as a group with more incentives and encouragement to follow than explore; exercise hypocrisy rather than skeptical questioning and this is precisely the technique adopted by all religious institutions either with or without organized set up. However change in every aspect of life is an inevitable truth that cannot be avoided or wished away.

12. As Winston Churchill said, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” I may add taboos and tradition may tuck it in or turn away but truth is ‘inconvenience’.

13. As Guy Murchie declares, “Evolution itself is an open ended and indeterminate process”… “Given the remarkable progress in our understanding of biochemistry, molecular biology, and evolution as a whole … we have failed to develop concepts, ideas, even a language that could capture the dance of this life” 

I would like to add it is because of our intellectual reluctance and religious impediments.

He adds, “Darwinism is agreed and uncontroversial: humans are an accident of evolution, because everything produced by evolution is strictly incidental to the process”.




14. But the whole malady started when certain societies, already well connected, intellectually more advanced ones and therefore got so well conditioned by their traditions and religiously prescribed ways of life based on such sound base, obviously ended up, out of lack of humility and refused to or blocked to accept alongside biological evolution, evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology as well.

Greater the comfort with abundance of resources and intellectual advancement providing a sense of or false notion of intellectual superiority made them get insulated in their ethnocentric arrogance and moved away from humility. I think it happened to certain societies, naturally so because of its great advancement when most parts of the world were in dark ages. Where there is no humility or lesser humility there is less and less attempt to learn. So they developed certain systems or practices which were superior at that earlier time compared to the rest of humanity and therefore felt that such practices had no expiry date at all.

ON Humility this one I picked long back from a very aggressively and nauseatingly written website:  “The problem with this is that humility is not natural for people, particularly for people in power.  And without humility, there can be no advancement in objective knowledge.  So we should ask what is the source of humility?  There is only one answer that I know of, and that is religion.  Religion teaches us to respect something greater than ourselves.  In modern Western religions, that something is God.  But whatever it is, the important thing is to recognize something sacred and above humanity.  As long as God (or the gods) is recognized as above humanity, people learn humility.  But when people place themselves on the level of God, humility is lost.  So religion only works when religion restricts what is sacred to non-human things like God or nature.  When human institutions become sacred, and people thereby compete with God, humility is lost, and so scientific advancement becomes impossible.” 




16.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/2/text_pop/l_072_03.html [ Steven Pinker on Evolution of the mind]
Certainly humans didn't evolve to their present state in one instant, in one fell swoop, because we know that our ancestors, the species like Homo erectus and Homo habilis already had a pretty big brain for a primate of that size. They were already using tools. They were almost certainly cooperating with one another. So it's not as if our species was the first to do it; it was building on some earlier stepping stones.
And it's unlikely that it happened all at once. You have to remember that not every creature that was evolving left behind its skull or its tools for our convenience tens of thousands of years later. Most bones or most tools rot or get buried and are never found again. So the earliest date at which we find some fossil or artifact is not the point at which the species first appeared; it was probably doing its thing for many tens of thousands of years before we were lucky enough to find something that it left behind that lasted to the present day.”
Steven Pinker “describes the self-described field of evolutionary psychology as a stepping stone toward this end. He calls for more integration with evolutionary genetics and more generally the fully rounded approach associated with Nobel Laureate Niko Tinbergen, who stressed that all evolved traits should be studied from functional, mechanistic, developmental and phylogenetic perspectives. He also shares his own best idea that has not yet received the attention that it deserves.”

17. Here is a list of very worthy articles available fortunately free on the net http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/ [ incidentally I have all his works along with all the works of other evolutionary biologist like Richard Dawkins and the great Guy Murchie’s ‘ the Seven Mysteries of Life ‘ and I wish for a more comprehensive understanding one must also read Kathleen Taylor’s ‘The Brain Supremacy’ Walter Gratzer’s ‘Giant molecules’, Frank Close’s ‘The Infinity Puzzle’ and most importantly Tirumoolar’s Tirumanthiram,  Vilayanur S. RAMACHANDRAN and for a more sane philosophical and rational non religious outlook  also read Neale Donald  Walsch, JK, Osho, Bertrand Russell etc





19. Again talking about evolution, a very interesting and vast subject by its very meaning indicates the innards of all species with inevitable strengths as well as short comings, rather embedded contradictions. The best we can do with all our brains and technological advancements available at our disposal is to minimize/compensate for our weaknesses like starting from using basic tools to using spectacles to implanting stunts and pace makers for heart problems to name a few.

20.While innards and inherent qualities are inevitable and beyond our choice, at least, our utilization of strengths /reactions to shortcomings can be sane and more sensible, that is what must be the attempt of any subject be it philosophy, spiritual science or pure science.

21. Evolution goes about its jobs unmindful of whatever we do or do not do, that decides and determines everything including our birth and death as biochemical organisms which are bound to decay or to die or to reorganize or to be reborn or to recreate into something else eventually.

“adaptations to bipedalism restricted the width of the birth canal and, hence, the size of the baby that can pass through it. Human babies are thus born when their brains are less than 30 percent of adult brain size so that they can fit through the narrow passageway. They then continue development outside of the womb, with brain size nearly doubling in the first year.”





23. MUDDYING THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL WATERS
In leaving a rich and massive tradition of nuanced moral reflection and argument untapped, while resorting to single-sentence dismissals and caricatures, Pinker displays shocking irresponsibility for a scholar, especially one who is addressing such a serious matter. Pinker himself criticizes such an approach to moral discussion in How the Mind Works: “The debate over human nature has been muddied by an intellectual laziness, and unwillingness to make moral arguments when moral issues come up.”5 Exactly! So why, when it comes to something as serious as infanticide, doesn’t Pinker practice what he preaches?


24. This is a very incisive and excellent criticism of all tall claims of evolutionary psychology

another excellent and thought provoking read though a book  criticism

25. Another great work a must read is Action!: Nothing Happens Until Something Moves  By Robert Ringer

26. Facts and myths of menstrual cycles:
                         http://www.fwhc.org/health/moon.htm

27.Recently i.e on TOI on 19th July Santosh Desai wrote 
Moonless in the City?
Nothing unified the world more than the moon. We marked our days through our nights, giving time a lunar name. In lunar calendars, time grows out of life, with every day being marked with an individual and independent character. Poornima, the night of the full moon was imbued with a sense of fertile celebration, while Amavasya, the state of moonlessness, was seen with trepidation, as it underlined the power that nature, always a fickle friend, held over us. The moon had many powers, not only over the oceans but over the bodies and minds of animals and humans. The full moon made us wild and primitive; madness (lunacy) after all has some lunar origins.
The moon is not that useful anymore, and lives on in our imaginations as vestigial habit. Its light carries little meaning for the city is ablaze with its own and it is difficult to make out a full moon night from a moonless one. It is no longer a marker of time. Time itself has lost rhyme; it now refers to nothing else outside of itself. It offers no proof, and comes with no markers. Day and night do exist of course, but in a globalised world, with decreasing meaning. Time is now a purely conceptual entity, a convention that we have collectively agreed to submit to.
Its mysteriousness too has lost luster. The moon was once beyond human reach and as fables have it, made available to children crying for it, by casting its reflection in a bowl of water. Landing on the moon might have been a human fantasy but it made the moon prosaic, a mere satellite, which the human race had managed to vanquish. Flags have been planted on the moon, and in the ultimate sign of mastery, samples from the moon have been tested in our laboratories.
Science has been nature’s ally in demystifying nature and its complexities. Gradually, nature is being erased as a point of reference for our lives. The conceptual, abstract and the virtual are replacing the natural. The internet is humankind’s most ambitious rejoinder to the natural universe. Here is a universe of another kind, hewed out of the recesses of human imagination, living in a space constructed out of electronic signals. The digital marks an independence from the physical, and takes the separation from the natural to its logical end.
What does it matter anyway? The moon was romanticized out of need, and is neglected today because it no longer serves the purposes it once did. The question perhaps is a larger one. With time it seems that the our sources of wonder are diminishing. Once we marveled at everything, out of ignorance often, but the world seemed full of things much larger and mysterious than we were. Now, technology produces wonder just as easily as it destroys it. We still seek wonder in other ways- in new gadgets with frequent updates, in fantastic stories of the superhuman and the otherworldly, by making nostalgic artifacts out of our past, by converting nature into a monument, by using the word awesome an an awful lot, and by clicking on links that promise us that we will be amazed or blown away by what we are about to see. I saw the moon the other night, and i was transfixed. Or blown away if you prefer.”

28. What we must be actually teaching the present generation is to expose them to the positive aspects of our great heritage which do not contradict any rational approach or curtail any acceptance of change or constrain seeing facts as they are and help them to address any issue based on such premises.

29.Human psychology is  more comfortable and conversant dealing with  premises, frames of references and observations rather than through indoctrinations, conditioned prejudices which will collapse at some point of time when the poor people will be left to suffer in a  vacuous inanity without a proud socio cultural and psychological identity and will also be very vulnerable to adopt anything and everything irrespective of its long term benefits or inherent value  so let us impart more importantly  humaneness and humanitarian values along with our rich cultural heritage likehttp://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2011/12/real-scientific-heritage-     of-india.html



32. More problems crop up when we as a species try to feel that we must authenticate every aspect of life through social approval further validated through sanctification by either religion, or substantiation by accepted scientific practice, commercial success or stamp of socio cultural sanctions.

33. Very often 
“Everything changes as you move through three stages of awareness:
first, that beliefs are the result of conditions;
second, that beliefs are the cause of conditions;
and third, that beliefs are themselves conditions.”
― Eric Micha'el Leventhal