Do you think that I will be of any use to my students in developing their personality? _Question asked by a teacher.

Answer:

Certainly, you are the right person for this job.  It is your good fortune that you have chosen such a noble profession.  There is great praise for a teacher in our scriptures.  In one of the Sanskrit hymns, the teacher is compared with Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshvara.  Therefore, you should never forget that you are doing a great service in moulding the lives and characters of numerous students within the four walls of the classroom.  Students come to you with great expectations that they will get something purposeful in life from you.  Your duty is not only to teach them syllabus, but to help them in building character.  Students coming out from educational institutions with character and integrity alone can build this great nation.  If you can do that in your humble way, you will be doing immense service to your nation and to the youth.

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A lit candle alone can light another.  Therefore, at the very outset, you must have firm conviction in the power of goodness; and it should express through your life and character.  Sri Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita (3:21).  "What ever a great leader does, other persons do that very thing!  Whichever standard he sets, the world follows it."  Your life itself will be a great source of inspiration for the students.  Teaching without practising will not produce any positive results.  Modern students are very intelligent.  They will watch your life and character.  If they do not find those things in practice, they will not care for your words.

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If you sincerely love your students, and are really interested in their welfare, they will certainly follow your footsteps.  You must develop infinite patience and forbearance.  Never find fault with your students for their shortcomings and mistakes, rather highlight their good qualities and successes.  Swami Vivekananda said : "If you speak kind words to boys and encourage them, they are bound to improve in time.  If you can give them positive ideas, people will grow up to be men and learn to stand on their own legs.  In language and literature, in poetry and art, in everything we must point out not the mistakes that people are making in their thoughts and actions, but the way in which they will gradually be able to do these things better.  Pointing out mistakes wounds a man's feelings.  We have seen how Sri Ramakrishna would encourage even those whom we considered as worthless and change the very course of their lives thereby!  His very method of teaching was a unique phenomenon.  He never destroyed a single man's special inclinations.  He gave words of hope and encouragement even to the most degraded of persons and lifted them up.  We, too, must follow in his footsteps and lift all up and rouse them."

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You should be able to enter into the hearts of your students.  They should find in you their friend, philosopher, and guide.  Then alone will they open their hearts and freely express their problems.  Your approach to their problems should be positive, and you should try your utmost to help them in solving their problems, if it is within your reach.  This intimacy and mutual love and affection will strengthen the relationship between the taught and the teacher.  Once you put them on right track, they will grow up as real men and women of character and integrity.  They will remain grateful to you throughout their lives for your great service rendered to them.  For you, there will be job satisfaction bringing in peace and happiness alround. _Swami Srikanthananda

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Our children are so sensitive that we are afraid of telling them anything. We do not know how they will react. How should we deal with them?._ Question asked by a Parent

Answer :

The first thing is to set an example through one's own life.  If your life is pure and disciplined, even without your telling they will assimilate those qualities.  Secondly, you must give them certain amount of freedom.  Do not try to be a policeman, always watching and suspecting their movements.  At the same time, you must keep a watch over them from a distance.  If you sense something wrong with them, first verify the truth before arriving at a conclusion.  You can easily collect the facts from their teachers and friends by occasionally visiting their working place or school or college.  No human being is perfect.  It is our nature to make mistakes.  No one does it intentionally; it is out of ignorance.  Naturally, children due to their lack of experience in this world will commit mistakes.  You must learn to forgive them.  "To err is human, but to forgive is divine", so goes a popular saying.  After a certain age, they should be treated as friends and handled with great love and respect.  As far as possible, do not take recourse to corporeal punishment and harsh scolding.  Develop tremendous patience to correct them in a friendly way.  Your genuine love and concern for them will certainly bring about a change in their behaviour.  Give them positive ideas, good literature to study, expose them to good surroundings.  Once you provide them with good food, they will not go in search of bad._ Swami Srikanthananda.

How far can I depend on others to develop my personality ?_ Question asked by a young student.

Answer :

This is the most crucial time of your precious life.  You are young and there is tremendous youth energy in you.  You should be very alert and careful.  This is the right time for you to mould your life and character.  Young people always want freedom, without knowing the meaning of the term.  You are still young and your mind is not yet fully matured.  Restless mind and turbulent senses will always try to pull you down.  Giving freedom to such minds and senses is a sign of weakness and certainly harmful.  Since you are not able to discriminate between the right and the wrong, it is always better for you to seek advice of elders, specially your parents and teachers in serious matters.  They are your well-wishers.  Their mature advice will certainly help you to follow the right path.  Even if they scold you for your mistakes, it is for your good.  Since they love you, and are interested in your well being, you should take it in the right spirit._Swami Srikantananda

Good Sayings ABSORPTION

Children, we are told, absorbe the best things in literature.

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Every individual not only absorbes his culture, he passes it on with modifications. _Stuart Chase

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The ability to absorbe things that are beautiful is born along with one's birth. _T.S. Subramanian

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India has always absorbed all that is highest and noblest and true. _G.Francis.

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Good Sayings ABSENCE

Absence from whom we love is worse than death. _William Cowper

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Absence is to love that wind is to fire :  It extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great. _Compte De Bussy

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Judicious absence is a weapon. _Charles Reade

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Absence extinguishes the small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle and blow in a fire. _La Rochefoucauld

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Failing to be there when a man wants her is a woman's greatest sin, except to be there when he doesn't want her. _Halen Rowland

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Absence makes the heart grow founder. _Thomas H. Bayly

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The absent are always in the wrong. _Phillippe Destouches

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GOOD SAYINGS... ABILITY ..

There is something that is much more scarce, something rather than ability.  It is the ability to recognize ability._ ROBERT HALF

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Do what you can, with what you have, where are you. _THEODERE ROOSEVELT

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Natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study. _SIR FRANCIS BACON

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Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. _CICERO

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Native ability without education is like a tree without fruit. _ARISTIPPUS

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A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything. _SAMUEL JOHNSON

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Since we cannot know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little of everything. _PASCAL

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Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities. _NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

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For a clever child without means, the need may well be to help develop his abilities.

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It is no use having a big bank balances unless one is ABLE to draw on it. _Dr.T.N. KRISHNASWAMI

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Achievement is not always commensurate with ability. _PAUL E. CAMPBELL

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Many creatures have greater ability in one director or another. Arthur Osborne

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People change, as do their attitudes, ambitions and abilities.

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A distorted view of one's abilities can make it hard to cope with the real world. ALISON GARDNER

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The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. _EDWARD GIBBON

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There is great ability in knowing how to conceal one's ability. LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

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Ability is poor man's wealth. _M. WREN

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Ability to concentrate is the prime virtue in any research establishment. _E.F. RUSSELL

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There is no interest without knowledge, and knowledge is acquired by those having ability to acquired it. _EDGAR SCHMIEEDELER

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Ability determines training, and training may give rise to interest. _EDGAR SCHMIEEDELER

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Ability is of little account without opportunity. _NAPOLEON BOANAPARTE

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Ability gives relief to the body as well as to the mind. _A.F. HARRISON

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There is increasing dissatisfaction with disease and disability.

What's on your mind?.. Sadguru

Questioner :  Why do human beings suffer more than the animals?

Sadhguru:  Animals suffer physically if things go wrong.  Human beings suffer because there is a discretionary intellect.  Human beings suffer much more than the other creatures because most of their suffering is mental and mental suffering is self-created.  S/he suffers more because s/he is a much better expert at creating suffering for himself or herself and for others.

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Of all the creatures on this planet, human beings create the maximum suffering for themselves and for all other creatures, isn't it?  This is because they have a discretionary mind.  They can choose to be lead the life anyway they want.  At any movement one can either make himself or herself joyful or miserable.

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Your mind is not a solid state, it is a fluid.  You can make it acquire any shape right now.  You can look at a tree and say "Oh! God is living there, wonderful", or you can look at the tree in terror and say "Maybe devils are hanging around there".  There is no end to the mind.  You can make just about anything with your mind _ you can make ecstasy out of it or misery out of it.  Most people have learnt how to make misery out of it because they are exercising this discretionary dimension of mind unconsciously.

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The source of human suffering is just that s/he has a choice.  So right now s/he is suffering your bondage, it's okay, but if you are suffering your freedom it is a tragedy, isn't it?  Right now, that's the tragedy that a human being has made himself to be.  But if you wish, this moment you can make your life heaven or hell.  The choice is yours.  

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There is a very beautiful story.  There was a yogi who was aged and nearing his death, so he went about telling everybody that he is going to heaven.  So all the other yogis just looked at him and they thought, "How does he know that he is going to heaven?"  As the yogi was very confidently telling everybody in the town, so all of them gathered one day and asked him, "How do you know you will go to the heaven?  You do not know what's on God's mind whether he wants to send you to heaven or hell".  The yogi replied "I don't care what's on God's mind, I know what's on my mind, I'm going to heaven and that's all".  In reality, that's all it is.....______ SADHGURU JAGGI VASUDEV, a prominent spiritual leader, is a visionary, humanitarian, an author, poet and internationally-renowned speaker.  He can be contacted at www.ishafoundation.org.

Don't despise accountability... Anupam Kher

There is a general notion that we become lesser human beings if we are accountable to someone.  Indeed, the very matrix of most people is etched in such a way to avoid accountability; as if accountability is to be despised at any cost.  All children want to grow up to being adults as fast as possible primarily because they want to be independent and stop listening to the dictates of others.  But is total independence from everyone independence from everyone a desirable state of existence?

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Before I answer this question, I would like to explain that I am not speaking from the point of view of orthodoxy, which is very prevalent in our society, viz. all of us must listen to our elders at any cost.  Such a belief comes loaded with its own negatives.  I have seen thousands of instances where supposedly well-meaning decisions of elders have wreaked havoc in the lives of their scions.  Wrong choices in careers, in professions and in later life - all forced upon by the elders - have made all too many people unhappy and I am not upholding this way of life for a moment.

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But the accountability I am referring to is in terms of a sense of spirituality and calmness which we all seek.  When we are children we all need the service of our parents as mentors; such a practice is unquestioned across all societies.  What happens when we grow up?  We erroneously believe total independence is the way forward in adulthood.  We would like to believe that we do not need any advice on matters personal as we have all the answers; in any case, we know best.  Yet we do not realise that on the professional front, we are continually seeking advice to advance our careers.  If you are a doctor or a lawyer or a CA, you are not only adhering to a system of internship and working under seniors for many years, but you are also joining your professional associations to keep abreast of advancements in your field.

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Even in the corporate sector, you are not only seeking - and  welcoming - gyan from your seniors, but you also attend in-house development programmes and also more specialised mid-career courses offered at major business schools the world over.  Then why the preference for independence in other matters?

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When I say be accountable, I mean that we become better human beings if we mentally feel accountable to our spouses, our children and others near and dear to us.  Rather than rest on our seniority, or in the case of some men, their belief in being seen as macho, and above any questioning by family members, let us constantly review our attitudes and our decisions from their perspective.  Let us have the humility to sit down with them and discuss if our beliefs are correct and incorrect.  Let us understand that we are accountable to everyone around us as our beliefs and attitudes impact them.

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And we should do it all the more; because we love them... The writer is a renowned film and theatre actor.....

The Blood Patriot... Shankar Roychowdhury

"Ittehad, Itmad, Qurbani" (Unity, faith, sacrifice) _ Motto of the Azad Hind Fauj (The National Army)

The 114th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose - recently commemorated on January 23, 2011  - is an appropriate occasion to remember him and the Azad Hindu Fauj.  On this occasion, the government of West Bengal declared that the day would henceforth be observed as Deshprem Diwas, or Patriotism Day.  The implied paradox that patriotism could be reduced to an annual one-day event seemed to escape notice.  If patriotism is not to be the last refuge of the scoundrel, it has to be a full-time job, without weekends or holidays.

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Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was a patriot, perhaps one of the greatest freedom fighters India's struggle for independence has produced.  He remains an unblemished and unchallenged icon for a cynical, disillusioned generation in search for role models.  On the international stage, Netaji keeps company in the pantheon of soldier heroes like Simon Bolivar, Jose de San Martin, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Ho Chi Minh, an aspect downplayed in India, especially by the ahimsa establishment, whose votaries claimed exclusive credit for non-violence for bringing Independence to this country.

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There have always been murmurings of an unspoken conspiracy of silence to keep Netaji at a profile lower than the "conformist" freedom fighters.  Earlier, the Indian Left had reviled Netaji during the 1940s as an Indian Quisling, heaping opprobrium upon him for collaborating with the Axis powers against their beloved spiritual homeland, the Soviet Union.  The Indian National Congress - India's Grand Old Party dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi duopoly - viewed Bose as a threat to the establishment and successfully manipulated his exit from the organisational hierarchy.

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Now, over the past few years, the very same political class which had earlier denigrated him or sought to sideline him is scrambling to retrace steps and re-appropriate Netaji for their political agendas, especially as the next Assembly elections in West Bengal looms closer.  Those who had done their best to consign him to oblivion after Independence, have now rediscovered his electoral weightage and are strenuously attempting to reconfigure Netaji as one of their own.

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Netaji's greatest achievement was the revival and revitalisation of the Indian National Army (INA) after the initial pioneering effort in 1941 by Capt. Mohan Singh failed to fructify.  Under his inspirational leadership the INA  became India's Mukti Bahini, seeking to confront the country's colonial overlords militarily for the first time since the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857.  "Chalo Dilli" was no street slogan for political processions, but a proclamation of grand strategic intent, though achievement of the objective had all the prospects of a hard long war.

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West Bengal has appropriated Netaji as its own illustrious son, though his birth place and initial education were in Orissa and the INA  has created had few, if any, exclusive linkages with Bengal, except in individual capacities.  The INA recruited extensively amongst the Indian diaspora in what is today Southeast Asia, but their core fighting strength was fashioned out of the wreckage of the British-Indian infantry battalions incarcerated in Japanese prison camps after debacles in Hong Kong, Malaya and the retreat from Burma.  These included illustrious entities like 1/14 Punjab (now 5 Punjab of Pakistan Army), and 2/17 Dogra and 2/18 Garhwal Rifles, both adorning the post-Independence Indian Arm.  These were trained professional infantry and there was thus a strong leavening of the traditional British martial classes in the INA.  But they were totally intermixed into what today's class-regimentalised Indian Army would designate as "all India, all class" units, while the Bahadur Group of the INA  commanded by Col. Shaukat Hayat Malik can lay strong claims to be the earliest ancestor of the special forces in the Indian Army, the Navy and the Air Force.

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The initial offensive of the INA was incorporated into Operation U-Go launched by the Japanese 15th Army under Gen. Renya Mutaguchi in 1944 in the Imphal-Kohima region on the Indo-Burmese border.  From this liberated zone inside India the INA planned to revert to a guerrilla mode and infiltrate into the strategic depths of India's eastern region in Assam and Bengal, to build up a low-intensity campaign in the interior exploiting anti-British sentiment fanned by the Great Bengal Famine raging at the time, while the Japanese hammered won the front door.  The ultimate outcome for India if Japan had emerged victorious can only be speculated on, but the history of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere which Japan sought to establish in Asia does not make, for comforting reading.

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The post-Independence Indian Army is the spiritual and temporal heir of two armies - the British Indian Army and the Indian National Army.  From the former, it has imbibed almost every aspect of its functioning, mannerisms and attitudes; from the latter, nothing.  Its principal opponent, the Pakistan Army, is a highly Islamicised military which uses terror as a weapon of state.  Is there any matching military and spiritual doctrine to provide sustenance for an avowedly secular Indian Army, now mired in moral distress as well?  In the 64th year of the nation's Independence, the modern Indian Army must introspect deeply upon its Azad Hind Fauj heritage which stressed patriotism as a way of life, something with far more substantial foundations than the mere regimental loyalties which have served so far.  The true heritage of Netaji and the INA, which goes well beyond the mere military and into the spiritual, ethical and emotional region of military motivation, will provide succour.  The teachings of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose must become required study material in its professional institutions, to motivate the Army and prepare it for the future in an increasingly turbulent environment..... 

............... GEN. SHANKAT, ROYCHOWDHURY is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former member of Parliament