We are what we are !!

 Vyadha Gita, literally means Song of the Butcher,  is part of Mahabharat and is actually a collection of  teachings  imparted by a Butcher to a Brahmin Sannyasi. This is our heritage and none less than Swami Vivekananda extolled Vyadha Gita as the essence of Karma Yoga. A Butcher , a housewife and a Brahmin Sannyasi are the three characters in this mystical story occurring in Vana Parva section and is told by Sage Markendeya to Yudhistra, the Pandava Prince. Lord Krishna, it seems, says in Srimad Bhagavata Purana that this Butcher is someone who attained perfection /realisation/emancipation by Satsanga. So let us dvelve a little into that incredible story where a Brahmin Sanyaasi is taught Dharma and Ahimsa by a Butcher of all the beings!! In terms of social heirarchy Vyadha is at the lowest status when compared to a brahmin and yet this story finds a prominent place in Mahabharata ,which is acclaimed as the Fifth Veda. A young Sanyasi went to the forest,meditated, ...

 It is said "there is a world of difference between precept and practice"- more so with our politicians and the gap widens when they speak about it more.!! It is generally thought that Political lies are always for exploiting the ignorance of the public. Mostly they are manipulative for winning the elections. But there are times like Obama lies about Health care inorder to push through some legislation to benefit the larger society( link ). However coming to India, Politicians throw promises at the people mainly to win elections and then they renege on the promises made. In the recent few weeks there are lot of accusations by the Opposition parties against the Central Govt that Question Hour in the ensuing Parliament has been abolished muzzling the freedom of MPs to ask Govt questions about peoples' problems to elicit answers from the Govt. But there are two stark statistics contradicting the so-called champions of freedom of expression in the Opposition. In the last few ...

 Plato in his magnum opus Republic has given an Allegory of the Cave which is widely called Cave Theory to emphasise on the lack of education on our nature which is similar to the prisoners inside the cave .Prisoners inside the cave see only images of reflection which are only shadows of the reality in the dim light.Plato being the disciple of Socrates has written this as a dialogue between his brother and Socrates. The prisoners free themselves from the bonded chains in the caves and come out and see that what they have experienced is not reality but reality outside the cave exists. This allegory shows that the human senses when chained to the cave do not allow humans to think beyond the cave images. In this allegory Plato keeps mathematics, geometry and deductive logic at the third and highest level of education. There is a similarity of this to Indian philosophy of Advaita, in which in simple terms it is said that what we experience is not the reality and it is more like an illu...