Have You Heard...?-2

‘A neurosurgeon covers his tracks with a headstone. A grave doesn’t know malpractice,’ said the cosmetic surgeon as he worked on a million dollar babe whose arches had dropped and a Gucci didn’t work for her. We caught up with the star in between the sessions and our correspondent reports,’ So-and So is sure to go places….’
benny

Have You Heard The News?

LONDON - First-time author Iain Hollingshead scooped a dubious literary honor Wednesday, winning the Bad Sex in Fiction Award for his novel, "Twenty Something."
I hope there will be Bad Religion award exclusively for preachers who promote themselves in the guise of Lord’s service.
benny

Law of Attraction

Nothing in cosmos stands by itself. Yahweh cannot be God without its attribute, shekinah glory. Material nature of Matter cannot exist without its abstract nature and so on. It is manifest in cosmos as gravity and we humans may even call it love.
Hydrogen molecules and oxygen molecules in our atmosphere are free to go anywhere but they on the contrary seek out each other. If it weren't so life on the Earth would have been impossible.
2.
If we had no faith in the Postal service would we entrust our letters to them? By our simple act we are keeping a service alive and going. The department would require manpower to run it efficiently and this in turn maintains so many personnel in its payrolls. Families of service personnel have something to live on and some extra for luxury items. It must keep trade flourish. At every level we see a linkage that must go on and on beyond its immediate one to one transaction. Faith does work and faith in a Heavenly Father is not something removed from this transaction. What we need to keep in mind is that we stick to facts as Jack Webb in Dragnet would say.('Stick to facts, ma'm.' )
Faith in God if could be fathomed at all, depends on our own experience as child and later as a parent. Period.
benny

While Wagner Plays On..

Whenever trouble appeared in the offing and disappeared just as it loomed as a threat, hasn't stopped me from getting on with my life. What made it go as it did? I have speculated much about it when I had time for it.
Perhaps something outside my control? Or something the matter bound up with me?
The most important thing is to get on with the task of living. At this moment of typing the sweeping strains of the overture'Tannhauser' envelop me. Just as it should reach its end, my life also must reach its desired end. So no matter friends, let us be reasonable at least when reason should loom so large in our world of senses.
Beyond grave if anyone of you should say faith is a nickelworth I am willing to sit up and listen.
benny

A Slice Of Life-3

The Bible had its pride of place in our home and not a day passed without my father reading aloud to us from it and giving simple homilies that he was sure we needed to know. Up with the dawn and before retiring for the night the Word was sure to be dispensed as though some sort of sacrament, that said more for his concern than for lapses in our growing up. On looking back, so seems to me that he would have been, had he lived in the time of Dr. Goldsmith, the model for Vicar of Wakefield. (A favorite read of my father by the way and he did read to me when I was ready for it.)
I do not read the Bible anymore as I used to, since I believe I have absorbed all that it holds, for my needs. The book contains no magical potion as spinach was for the one-eyed sailor, but nevertheless,a book of excellent parts that may be used for reflection and as guideposts.
The reason my father dipped into it isn’t the same for me; nor is the manner of his search. I discovered from the Bible what I thought best summed up my world and my needs. The whole New Testament I can sum up in one verse and it ought to teach anyone who is serious about witnessing Christ. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about historical Jesus or someone else.
“And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’ Zech 13:6
I ought not complain if I suffered loss or gained in my daily transactions with people. In the house of my friends I must show myself friendly no matter what it may entail. If I gained disproportionately some of it must go for the succour of those who are in want. I shall not expect however, others to do the same because one does not make friends with the intent,‘ what’s in it for me?’ I might here add that never have I felt let down completely.
On looking back at my life everytime what at first seemed as a disaster has only turned around for my good. Nothing short of a miracle.

Ah, The Tangled Skein Of Our Guilt!

‘To be slapped for no reason gives you a halo; but to be slapped for a reason leaves a hollow spot in your pride’ said I to Monk Anselmo who said he had abjured pride completely.
Master Crapper’s son later in the evening teased the Monk so pitilessly and he took it all with resignation. When Master Crapper came late in the evening he asked the monk if he felt at home. In reply Monk Anselmo gave a mighty whack to Master Crapper and then went to bed.
Master Crapper was most incensed and then perplexed. “ I feel my pride shall never be the same. So humiliated I feel.”
I told him to overlook his guest’s action. “Cuthbert, your son will explain it all, one day. I suppose.”
How we explain our innocence or Christian virtue of being afflicted for no reason or delivered by the power of His Name etc., has to be understood in our relation to others. Our deliverance comes at the expense of some other. In the equation someone gets punished as Master Crapper was. By the way the host could not be said he was completely innocent. Could he?
benny

Art and Nature

One evening Xeno called out Aesop who was walking along the jagged rocks, which the sea had over the years sharpened to a keen edge. Aesop stopped on his tracks. Xeno approached him. He had his lyre with him. He apologized about his behavior in the House of Glaucus. "I was drunk, I suppose." Xeno admitted.
Aesop asked him why he still insisted on carrying the lyre.
"You are a philosopher and not a musician." Aesop said.
"Yes, I am a philosopher. Well Heracles, the philosopher always carries a wedge of rock with him to speak of mysteries of nature? I think I could speak with this lyre of the discord that man in his pursuit of power causes."
For emphasis Xeno struck the lyre wildly and the discordant notes set the nerves of Aesop on edge.
"No one who hears you will catch the point you are trying to state. They will only close their ears to shut out that jarring music." Aesop said.
"How is that Heracles could succeed with a stone, whereas I cannot, though we both are using an object to illustrate our arguments?"
Aesop thought about it for a while. He said: “One can learn lessons from nature, however lowly a thing it may be; whereas what you deal with is art. No amount of words shall come to help you if your art is bad."
benny

A Weak Spot

Silly Bill didn’t like too much cold; the block of ice he stood on gave him a chill; neither did a kettle of boiling water give him comfort. In fact it scalded his feet till the knees. Later he had his one foot in the kettle and the other on a block of ice. He thought of a middle ground and exclaimed, “Law of averages ought to work.”
But it didn’t.
European Union has to consider Turkey’s admission into their Parliament at Brussels. Turkey reminds me of Silly Bill’s attempt to find a comfort zone. The country by a Constitution embraces a secular concept but many evidences we have been having lately ought to warn us how fragile it is. The country has become a testing ground for the Islamic fundamentalists to gain a foothold into Europe. Scandinavian countries, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain have sufficient radicals and may prove, if Turkey chooses the way of the Mullahs, to be troublemakers.
A domino effect is not to be laughed off.
Pope Benedictus XVI is due for a visit to Turkey. He hopes thereby to make peace and also strengthen his sagging authority in the way the West has distanced itself from the Church. Almost two millenniuum the Church had time to clean up her act. She didn’t. Naively She is trying to drum up support from the unlikeliest quarters for Religion, to be the lynchpin for solving all the evils present today. Both Caliphate and Papacy are as dead as Dodo. Let us leave fools from meddling in our struggle for solving some real issues that we face today.
( We wrestle with the giant Pharmaceutical conglomorates to provide affordable antiretroviral drugs for fighting AIDS and other deadly diseases. What does the See of Vatican says? Something as follows,“ The Church forbids the use of condoms: for it is devil’s practice.” How much more out of touch with reality can ever the Church get?)
benny

The Good, Bad and The Ugly

The tragedy of a nation is not in those blacksheeps who will not endure any instruction for their own ultimate good or for the love of their brethren but look only for their immediate gratification. The laws are framed for them but they know how to find loopholes; throw the book at them and they have riches and influence so the blow is cushioned by some poor innocent victim.

The real tragedy is in those well-meaning souls, yet busybodies, who neither learn from the past nor from their peers but on that single article of authority they possess, undermine the very foundation of the ideals of the nation they are dutybound to protect by oath of office.
benny

Once In The Old West

A horse thief in the Old West was brought before the Indian Chief who was willing to give him a fair trial. But the wily old thief would have none of that.
“Look here Chief. Don’t gimme Me- Big- Chief-stuff.’ You might have found me with wrong packhorse and the goods. O.K, so what? The nag that I rode yesterday found me her friend and would not carry me a step further without her. So I said, ‘Well Rosie, when the Judge hauls me up for stealing you can give account of the five pounds weight of silver and gold cigarette case as well. What friends you choose are your own affair. I am clean.’
Turning to the Chief he said: ”You can ask her yourself”.
The Chief gravely heard him out and said: ”Our departed Spirit of the Plains taught us that Coyotes smell the breath of mountain pines and tell Truth... Don’t ask me how, Paleface, It is also said ‘If Mustangs smell the breath of him who speaks with a forked tongue and tells Truth, let the Wise One decide.’
benny

A Personal Angle

Master Crapper and I had joined Monk Anselmo who was going to the Canterbury Cathedral. He carried with him the votive offerings of his flock of the parish of Pie-in the-Skye. At one stopover he tried to rope us in for God’s service.
Master Crapper didn’t think it was a good idea. Neither did I. He said,
“If God wanted us, he would have given us proper names so we may bring glory to Him.” The monk thought it was a poor excuse. I explained and he still wasn’t convinced.
“ Master Twaddle can’t help his name being Twaddle. Evenso when he say No, it means just that. .”
Monk Anselmo skillfully countered his argument and would have still pressed but my companion said,” If it was God’s will He would chosen for our father’s names as something grander and more respectable.”
Monk Anselmo suggested,” You can always change your name. The Church shall have no objection.”
“ But I do have,” Master Crapper was sure,” my father stood as guarantor for me at my baptism and I bear his name as proudly as I can. But as for the Church it must accept me as I am.”
Master Crapper was certain he served the Church like a flying
buttress, that is from outside.
benny

Aesop's Final Day

6.
One year Aesop lived in a limbo while Law decided his case. In the end the order came.
The night before Aesop was to be executed Agabus ( former fellow slave, now the prison governor) came down to chat. For months together he had sought his company and probed his mind. Aesop’s company relieved his tedium somewhat. That night he asked if he believed in the soul? “Till this day while we chatted up I thought your education was at the expense of a living man. I see no reason why you should profit from a dead man speaking.” Aesop said.
Agabus was apologetic and explained he knew he was a good man who got caught in bad times. Agabus coaxed the condemned to speak his thoughts on after-life. “Allow me to my silence,” he insisted, ”Let me not explain every thing away. Man must have some mystery that he can call his own. It gives his humanity a certain dignity. Let me keep mine.”
“What?”
“My soul, what expresses the Oneness of Things. It matters not what charges the State have found against me. It may be imagined or real. What does it matter? The place where I go to, if I am found in the error, shall correct me but with absolute Justness. So need I waste my breath anymore?”
(Selected from The Life of Aesop.)
PS:
In my opinion we are apprentices to life and we shall go whereever we go, growing in the knowledge of God or Truth whatever. It is my belief that the dead shall be still players, perhaps by giving their energy levels at their disposal to those, who are likely to carry on their unfinished business; or as intercessors for us. These matters, being merely speculation one should take with extreme caution.
benny

A Slice Of Life-2

'It is easy to be economical with truth; but higher truth is when you want to tell things as they should have been.'

I was Benjamin to my father. I was the youngest among seven children got in quick succession. My father being raised an orphan in a loveless family wanted a family of his own. He got his wish.
I was a premature baby and born with hair all over. There were a few wellmeaning souls who, it seems clucked their tongues in sympathy when they came to see the newborn. Because the man was exceedingly handsome and the woman was passable and children were winsome to say the least, there were those who thought I would be the odd one. In a way I guess they were right.
I was slow in learning to speak. Some thirty months it took me to make some coherent sounds that passed for baby talk.
I was told later that my father despite my awkwardness made much of me and used to take me around whenever he took the air along the beach.
Years later when I noted this down I wrote thus:” I remained silent for so long because I had nothing worthwhile to say.” It just proved I had all the requisite qualities to enquire into a higher truth.
benny

Playing By The Ear

When I was a child, monk Anselm used to tell me that I ought to help my father in his work. "I am but a child" said I," I, master Twaddle intend to enjoy my childhood!"
It so happened that my father died all of a sudden and I had to step into his shoes and keep the family together.
Later Monk Anselmo wanted me to take up a higher calling." Master Twaddle, be a preacher. You shall have reward in heaven." said he. But I refused saying with my name I was sure to make a poor preacher. He had to agree in the end it was indeed so.
Life throws up surprises so no man can sit back plumbing the depths of his intellect. We all are apprentices to life and we make sense of it on our feet. As we go along we make mistakes and try to make the best of our bad job and maximize the gains. Since we are not complete or perfect the only way to such matters as Religion is this:" I could be wrong." So let us treat such matters beyond our ken with the spirit of scepticism. It is healthier and safer for our species. Only a fool will want to cut the throat of another merely because his Allah is called by another name by 'pigs and apes.' Such misguided fellows require our sympathy. Perhaps they may improve from example and experience. So instead paying 'an eye for an eye or tooth for tooth,' let us be charitable.
benny

A Musical Jesus

Tchaikovsky called Mozart the musical Jesus. In his sublime expression in a musical idiom, of man’s aspirations for becoming as ‘unto gods’, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has the unfinished c minor mass as his calling card.
Mozart was not by any definition of the term a saint, let alone to be compared with Jesus. Other than observing the requirements of the Church outwardly as any other Viennese of his time he spent his life making music,- and writing compositions as never before heard, thereby fulfilling the promise of his genius and that of his father’s expectations in particular. In his spare time he drank, played billiards, made love and attended parties and cultivated the rich and influential. Repressed at youth by a somewhat tyrannical father, he had a partiality for coarse humor and horseplay. His failings were all too human while his genius was of the highest, transcendent kind. When I think of Godhead it is Mozart who comes to my mind.
No day I have passed unless I am on the road, or otherwise busy elsewhere, without listening to him. Day before yesterday I listened to the Mass in its entirety. (It is unfinished like Requiem by the way.)
Lifting oneself by bootstraps as it were, out of chaos of social upheavels, petty squabbles of politics and despite the drag of enervating habits and financial disarray to make music or art of high order is heroic. But in the way Mozart lifts us higher with his music, to be in a transcendental world from which we may gather enough strength to carry on with our unfinished business on earth is nothing short of salvation dispensed freely to all. Who but God can confer such a grace?
benny

Signs of Our Times-2

“ We hold ideas and whoever holds opinions different from ours is a potential threat, an enemy.”


No idea can ever be separated from its abstract nature. If it is made flesh as we read in the Scriptures ‘Word was made flesh etc.,’ it is still an idea at its core. With it the bearer of idea delineates in so many examples what idea means to him or her. Happily I can say I bear my humanness as an idea.
What have we done with our ideas? Our forefathers made ideals out of the very capacity of our species to deal with abstractions. It is true for us also.
God is of the same weight as Satan as an idea.
Having made such distinctions and without having fully searched to its limits, or foreseen its downsides we have happily gone on with other aspects of our nature.
As a species distinct from Homo erectus we developed our social structure: owing to present and clear danger of predators out there it was necessity that drove us to seek security of numbers. Our progress to evolve a concept of ‘us and them’ was put up before we have had acquired the full capacity or the strength of mind. The former could have given us a breadth of vision to think of all life forms of the same stock. For want of that breadth circumstances made us cling to ‘a concept of us and them.’ Having found security of allegience and brute strength as prerequisite for survival we made clans into a Cause, sovereign and above the sacredness of an individual. It led to the idea of tribes and later of nations. If only had we shown maturity to the second, the strength of mind, we would have enquired more into the natural phenomena of our world and not be swept off our balance by our fancies that do not speak well for us.
What did convulse us? In thunder we heard God's anger and we made our little rites to appease him. We ought to have made forests our allies than treat them as something evil; we ought to have made the soil our bedfellows than as some hallowed grounds for pouring precious blood of our sacrificial victims.
Religion is an idea that consumed our primordial ancestors to their hurt and the same holds true for national identity, an idea that has become wellworn for use.
benny

A Tall Order

A fellow who regularly took part in Mardi Gras was once brought before the Judge for ‘crimes against the State’. Before sentencing him the Judge asked him if he had any last wish. “Ah I wish to give a performance of a lifetime, get me a good press and an appreciative audience.”
“Appreciative audience? And a good press?” the judge exclaimed, ”These are not in my power to give.” He ordered for the rack instead.
benny

Signs of Our Times

“We make events* and we are in turn changed by them; so we may
make more of the same. There must be some method to this madness.”

Light from dead stars, travelling across vast space, lights up our night sky. They being dead do not matter to us. We see their presence in the form of light along with the light from other stars that have enough fuel to last millions of years. Cosmos teaches us to take the past and the present events as not separate but relative. The anonymous inventor of wheel may be unknown yet his concept is still verymuch in evidence. Ideas are past the reckoning of time and space. What would it mean to us?
God as an Idea is connected with the idea that some monarchs touted in their Divine right rule. Monsieur Guillotine corrected the error of such an idea. Similarly totalitarian rule of the 20th century was a rehash of the same concept. We haven’t seen the last of it. Under consitutional monarchy the prime Minister is first Among the Equals. Prime Minister Mr. Blair may feel passionate about committing troops to a war, which is very unpopular in Great Britain. Still why does he play second fiddle to American interests is based on an idea. How valid is it? Only time will prove that.

En passant: Had the British government taken steps early on to diffuse the growing discontment of the Asian immigrants and given them same avenues for advancement as with everyother I doubt if the situation would be as today. The road covered by England to become an Imperial power was paved with her own conviction of moral superiority,- and Religion was an integral part of its policy making. The chain of events set off by them still cause ripples.
Event*: a coincidence of two or more objects in relation to one another in time-space. (American Heritage dictionary)
benny

Known Depredator

When I called on Rabbi Benn Weiss he was reading The Hound of Heaven. He had a friend a Maronite Christian whom he introduced and after having exchanged greetings I asked if it was the time to read some scary stuff. The rabbi shot his eyebrows at me. I explained, ” The hound of Baskervilles scared the hell out of my pants.”Perhaps the rabbi knew me too well to make a fuss and said quietly: “ This is a poem and a moving one at that.” Once he explained the poem I could relax,” The poet compare The Unspeakable Name to a hound,” and I looked towards the guest of Benn Weiss with a sweet smile and said,” I come as a thief...” Luckily he didn’t know the quote. So I let it at that. “We ought to stop busybodies making sacred things sound as if they were commonplace.”
“I will come on thee as a thief." I repeated the verse from the book of Apocalypse.
Rabbi looked out and said,” The police are already out in the streets.” He glared at me and asked,” Hope you haven’t been upto any mischief?”
“Cross my heart,” I said facetiously,” nothing criminal except I said some bad jokes and mangled Hebrew.”
* God is like a mug shot (too indistinct to the point of misleading,) on the dossier of a believing heart.
benny

Conjugation Principle

Human species is still evolving. Consequently we might say human mind is still imperfect. If our vision were perfect pointillism as an art movement would not have arisen. George Seurat, the artist was an exponent of this technique. Canvases are painted in daubs of color in dots close to one another. When seen from a little distance these colors appear as merging, and thus give the images its brilliance. Pointillism succeeds because of the ability of the brain to see various blobs of colors as one. Conjunction principle merely explains our partiality for giving belief-systems however irrational it may seem, far too much weight. It fills in blanks and creates a comfort zone for the believer.
So a believer might see divine power, as All-seeing and One who rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Only that we err in details.
benny

St. Augustine And The Heretic

Aurelius Augustinus of Tagaste, North Africa was won over from his dissolute ways when he and a friend of his were holidaying and they heard a neighbor child singing a refrain,’ Tolle Lige, Tolle Lige,”(Take up and read, Take up and read). He took it up as divine guidance and read from the book of Romans wherein St. Paul’s admonition,” make not provision for the flesh,” made a deep impact to win him over from his hedonistic way of life. At that moment his friend who also heard the child did not think it anything special.
That moment nevertheless was a turning point: one going on to become the father of medieval Roman Catholicism and the other, a heretic. When the latter was at the death- bed the saint went to see him. The heretic resisted a last minute conversion saying that while Aurelius found God whose grace was irresistible he found quite something else. When the venerable Bishop asked him to spell out what he meant he merely quoted his friend’s dictum:” In essentials, unity; in non- essentials, liberty and in all things charity.” When pressed further he said, ” Allow me to die as a heretic; we both were searching for the same- we both, so I believe, found what we searched for. Heresy or liberty? Neither you nor I have time to convince the other as to the opposite. So I shall not, either in this life or in any other.”
Time presses us to shape our belief-systems in the indistinct runoff of certainties and what seem coincidences. These also switch roles. Thus what seeemed a sure thing prove to be flash in the pan. History is replete with such paradoxes. We only need to look at what goes on in Iraq to understand Inversion principle at work.
benny

Whose Purpose Is It Anyway?

The last time I Saw PIE-in-the- Skye:
Monk Anselmo one day was telling his pupils of some personages from antiquity. The story made such impact on me and I shall merely quote him from memory.
Etruscans, or some other tribe I cannot exactly remember which, before Rome became a republic had something of a reputation. It was simply in this: the people were amenable to rule. A series of kings who belonged to a family of brigands had ruled them and before the last king was deposed the tribe had learnt to rob. And rob well they did. Then they tried rule of the law. It also seemed to work for a while and then it became somewhat similar to the way democracies work at present. “ We must work with consensus.” So they presented their case before public assembly and put to vote. Before the aristocrats wanted to grab public lands all they did was bribe the good for nothing citizens who never stopped stealing from each other or doing some mischief in order to feather their own nest. They took the money and said their support was theirs. The party of Aristocrats prospered and they elected one as the king by popular vote. They soon passed a law making his blood line as hereditary kings.
Thus King Pennypincher ruled the tribe but before he could father a son to pass on his throne he was out hunting. His horse tripped on a loose pebble and fell headlong into a ravine. Pennypincher broke his skull and died.
Monk Anselmo asked, “Of what is a pebble?”
“God’s instrument, of course!” I couldn’t help telling him. The monk looked at me questioningly and I said,” Oh holy monk I suffer from kidneystones. I die daily. God put it there to chastise me.”
Monk Anselmo later asked me if I believed in hell. I was emphatic. “ No! How can there be a worse hell than this?”
On recalling it I must say we suffer only as human beings, and as we are part of a material world, a grit has its purpose as any blade of grass. It doesn’t matter whose purpose it serves as much as I suffer or benefit from it.
benny

On God

God isn’t an idea whose time has come but every idea of man being put forward for working out some perfection, that separately each may sense in his or her own being but given its conscious direction.
A carpenter who takes pleasure in his craft doesn’t make his handiwork to be appreciated at the cost of other craftsmen. His joinery must have been perfect but if the masonry work is somewhat out of alignment it is useless. He works under supervision willingly so his craftsmenship is made to fit with every other detail and he does so not for his own glory; he is intelligent enough to accept the ground conditions and work around so his service adds to the house in general. The several parts in its complete harmony have made the house redound to the skill of all involved in its construction. There in his reputation and satisfaction ought to rest.
benny

It Works!

My belief isn’t as much important as whether it works or not.
My leap of faith in the dark may have landed me on the solid ground in one instance. But in another it is most likely to land me in some disaster.
God as the ultimate principle I address not for any reward but what I may refer to as the final arbiter whether in excellence or in perfection. Every enquiry into my existence or my kinship with all other life forms I can only make sense with my reason. But as I said in A Slice of Life, is not everything. So I let God stand.
benny

Week-13

How do we locate a fixed point in space? If we can lay out the point in terms of length, breadth and depth from where we are stationed it is possible. The difficulty arises when that point is traveling at a certain speed. It would then be necessary for us to account for time. Time as a fourth dimension.
Within such a four-dimensional model shall we consider our earth as one point? In such a case all events we experience and what actions we set off are set in time. In such a model of space and time no action of man can be seen separate or insulated from other chains of events. A classic example of this we see in the way Albert Einstein unsuccessfully tried to debunk the Quantum mechanics in the latter part of his life.
Einstein’s paper on the nature of light in 1905 changed our understanding of our universe completely. Einstein then moved on in search of a Unified Field Theory. He was certain Heisenberg’s theory of probability was flawed. (‘God does not play dice’ as he famously remarked.) But in his pioneering work of 1905 Einstein had advocated light as particles. The proponents of Quantum mechanics notably Niels Bohr among them, continued from where he had stopped. In trying to prove the theory about everything Einstein merely made himself a relic, out of touch with the reality. (Ref: W40)
benny

Credo of Oneness

Our ape-man walked for the first time on two feet because of the advantages he saw therein. The idea of the rich pickings he could have by freeing his hands had to be completed with the security in numbers. Oneness is in the perception of other members in his group to follow suit.
Oneness is the totality of positive transaction each member could build out of every gain.
Oneness by the above definition accepts contrariness. Culture of Indian Americans is as enriching as those of Armenian Jews; the same is true for the Japanese or Chinese. Each culture has its splendor that a prejudiced eye may not see. It doesnot matter. if a red neck should despise another for the color of his skin it doesnot matter. In his prejudice he has merely concealed the blackness of his soul. Whether he likes it or not he will have to settle the matter since Oneness is a crucial part in the equation.
What upheavel we see all over the world is a result of accumulated effect of West treating the Middle East with scant respect for long.
Mankind cannot be divided and ruled without the error of such a policy boomeranging.

Tailpiece: Credo of this oneness? ‘All for one, one for all.’
benny

Putting The Cart Before...

Knights of the Round Table sat around discussing what they ought to do next. King Arthur asked the aged Merlin who had come down for a visit and was also present.
“ Any suggestions, Oh wizard?”
“ Holy Grail would be a challenge worthy of these knights?”
The king thought it was indeed a wise counsel. The king put the proposal on the table. All the knights were immediately on their feet exclaiming,” Hurrah, we have been fasting these days! We have sanctified ourselves for this holy quest.”
The king noticed that one of the knights remained seated.
Merlin went to Noelle and asked if he wasn’t enthused enough to set out.
No stir from this knight who had in his day killed two ogres from Kilkenny. “ Remember, excellent knight! Holy Grail isn’t any ordinary cup. It is the cup our Lord drank from.”
“ I know,” the wan and pale knight answered, “Just the same I shall not move from here without my constitutional. Two cups filled to brim, for me and my Molly,-my nag if you must know. And one for the road.”
The king ordered his valet to serve the knight from his own cellar. Having drunk Knight Noelle mounted his horse saying,” I can now appreciate truly the charms of this Holy Grail.” And he rode off.
You can only begin any quest from the known to the unknown.
First learn to be a good humanbeing before you spill the blood of each other over your God.
benny

Trapper Trapped!

Oneness is not a supreme being but the way events play off one another from which we may deduce certain principles being as their basis. This consistency arises for the very nature of matter. Matter at its ‘least irreducible part’ keep its abstract aspect as true opposite. These two form as one. (Thus it is not the question ‘which came first: chicken or egg?’ but that one- cannot- be- taken- without- the- other situation.) What would that mean? You take away the freedom of another at your own peril.
A gaoler is a prisoner of sorts.
The spirit in which the settlers celebrated the first thanksgiving with the native Americans was more in keeping with the fervor of the ‘latter- day spiritual Israelites’ entering a new Canaan. The symbols and the metaphor would have sounded right if the growing nation had been just. In their lack of consideration for the natives and their culture they brought themselves the present situation. Their Thanksgiving Day has become, in the many commissions and omissions, debased into a mere commercial farce just as Christmas that is just around the corner.
Tailpiece: By the way do you think the lie about Santa Claus is allowed as part of tradition to make the children learn the spirit of giving? In the keeping of the spirit of a saint who supposedly sought out the waifs and other unfortunates on a joyous occasion as the birth of Jesus? Or is it encouraged to drum up sales for the traders?

benny

Let Us Talk Turkey

It is widely assumed that the first Thanksgiving occurred in 1621 and was celebrated by the Pilgrims, English settlers, and local Native Americans. It will come as a surprise to many that 1) the meal in 1621 was not the first Thanksgiving in North America and, in fact, not even a thanksgiving feast, 2) turkey was probably not served and 3) there were no Pilgrims!?The Native American people had celebrated the harvest, in one form or another, for several thousands of years prior to European colonization.
The details may be lost in passage of time and we know Indians who came to help the settlers in their dire need and taught them farming lost much since that time.
Your guess is as good as mine.
They lost their open spaces to roam and then their bison on which their livelihood depended.( Bisons were whiteman's sport till the game lasted). Then came 'Go West, young man' period and the railways connected the growing nation. The settlers needed more room and progressively the Indians found themselves hemmed in. Reservations did something to the native spirit.
These turn of events didn't leave the spirit of the nation unaffected. They could genuinely thank God without having to look over their shoulders. The sight of Indians, you see, reduced to drinking and gambling was enough spoil their festive spirit.
The nation can only have something to really thank for when the Indians can also in every respect be part of the freedom it enjoys. Then we may really speak turkey.
At present it is only a thanksgiving of superficial kind and calculated to fill the pockets of mercantile class.
benny

W-12day5

When we hear a melody do we not feel our mind racing ahead to carry the tune? We haven’t heard it before but just the same our mind can anticipate how it ought to go. The particular melody is a block of sounds and abstract; yet in its order there resides something that appeals to our mind.
Our mind grasps the external world through ideas: ideas are charged with emotional power.
Tailpiece: Cosmos itself is an idea. Within which our mind conjures up an idea while we hear a melody; by being totally absorbed with it, Cosmos doesn’t cease to exist: It is as if cosmos is represented in any idea we entertain in time and place.
benny

A Slice Of Life

Growing up in a backward part of India, books were my prescription drugs, art a therapy and watching movies my lifeline to sanity. Like the narrator in the play The Glass Menagerie, illusion suited me better; and in my interior world I could do no wrong. Perhaps I wasn’t yet ready for the real world that was monstrously short on facts and more on keeping appearances. A world of genteel mediocrity that suffered fools because they held some position of authority and my father earned his keep by taking his order from them. (Shades of Wiley Loman, the salesman!)
One university examination in particular I would skip for the simple reason that it clashed with the last picture show ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’My reasoning was thus: ‘University examinations are held every year. I can always try another time. But this movie perhaps may not be seen in my part of the world for many years to come.’
Mind you I was in my twenties! Now some four decades later, what that examination was about or the course in engineering for which I was least equipped by temparament or in inclination, I have no idea.
Even at this last part of my life I am warmed up by the feelings the movie evoked in me.
Tailpiece: Reason is not everything; life must be in letting cold reason and impulsive heart to work out their differences.
benny

W-11day7

A child who is made to feel special and treated with respect shall ever be special.
From my scrapbook:
‘ Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power’. (Abraham Lincoln)
‘ It is better to suffer wrong than do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust’. (Samuel Johnson)
benny

Sequel to A Modern Fable of Nov. 15

The burglar who broke into the merchant’s house insisted he had no other choice unless he found enough articles of value in order to save his face. Mustapha the neighbor could understand his predicament.
“ You are right Ali Baba. But the police around here are worse than cut throats. They string you up from the lamppost first for being ‘kaffir’ and thereafter demand a fee for their services.” The burglar suddenly let out a sigh of relief.” Whew! Brother, You must save your neck while I save my face.” He suggested him to ask the neighbors to bring all the valuables they could give. Mustapha did as he was told and found others were cool to his idea. They just melted away. In the end Mustapha had to pay up from his own goods in order to save his face. The burglar saw it was not much but he thought it just saved his face.
He quickly faded off with what he could.
Mustapha reminds me of the lot of Democrats. U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel the incoming chairman of the House of Representatives' tax-writing committee, said he would introduce legislation to reinstate the draft as soon as the new, Democratic-controlled Congress convenes in January. "If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft," he said.
The Republicans must be laughing in their sleeves!
benny

A Two Stranded Rope

'A two stranded rope is not easily broken.'
A baby begins life by measuring his home and if could get the coordinates right he shall in his time get the whole world also right. In him are the values of his race, in terms of experience collated from the whole. Something of his species is inextricably linked to the way he shall set his sights about. His parents may be narrow in outlook; yet he has within the breadth of vision of the race to counter all such restraints of his immediate world. (In other words how he sets about reading is not isolated or narrow. He encompasses the unknown world before him, with clues already impressed within.) Common experience of his species is a kind of safety valve or a counterweight to everything that may go wrong in his immediate circumstances.
A tyrannical father may impose his will in his home. But a child who is alive to the life within shall learn to dissemble or roll with the punches and bide his time to escape into the wide open spaces with his wits intact. Another may be a rebel and hating every form of authority.
In a battle of wills parents are definitely at a disadvantage. So wisdom is to work with the children in order to give them wherewithal to maximize what capabilites are latent. Wanting to make them in their own image can only be waste of time.
Parents can only be a trustee and guardian to their offspring who are not merely there to fulfil their expectations but their own. Their strengths drawn from their parents are only in part. They also owe as individuals in their own right to make their way into the world: these shall be by use of whatever thy can make use of, both from their parents and from the whole.

benny

Aesop Tells A Story

Aesop began as a slave in the household of an Athenian trader, by name Iadmon. One day he was amusing other slaves with a story. The story dealt with the Thirteenth Labor of Hercules. His master overheard the story and could not help laughing at the improbability of its plot.
Later in the evening the master called Aesop to entertain the family with a story.
The slave began,” In Athens was a wealthy farmer who was known Mr. Know All. He brought in a field hand who strangely enough, was called Mr. Know Nothing. From morning till evening the master drilled his new worker how he should do his tasks. But the worker went on doing his chores in his own way. “This is how I have done it some twenty years and I am set in my ways.” said he to himself. Of course it never came up half as much as his master expected.
That night Know All went home and over supper told his wife that the new field hand was proving more difficult than he imagined. Meanwhile the worker went to his quarters and told his wife that his master was a bigger fool than he thought him to be.
When asked to explain he said with shrug,” If he is such a Know All how come he did not see for what I am? To make it worse, he expects me to do his way. Why doesn’t he do it himself then?”
Iadmon at the end of the story asked his wife somewhat puzzled, “I wonder, did he mean to poke fun at me; he is a very subtle fellow.” His wife comforted him saying that a story need not upset him. “Dear, You know very well you are not a Know All. You know that and I also know that."
“Bah, what do you know?” he muttered crossly.
benny

Candid Comments

1.
In 1975 , Charlie Chaplin whose Tramp image has become a movie icon,- and his films are milestones in the history of cinema , encapsulated his career thus,” I went into the business for money, and art grew out of it.”
2.
George Orwell, author of 1984 and the Animal Farm once told an interviewer that the prime reason he wrote books was that his old fifth grade teacher might see his work and be remorseful that she misjudged him.
3.
When asked what was needed to make a successful piano virtuoso, concert pianist Oscar Levant replied: “ Five things are essential: talent, imagination, energy, determination, -and a very rich wife.”
4.
During an interview the former world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano was asked who had hit him the hardest during his career, he shrugged to say,” That is easy- the tax collector.”
benny

By what measure you...

There are those who strictly pay tithe because their God is a God of percentages. They pay God one tenth of their dubious worth. They pay with their weariness; they give their 'woe-is-me' kind of piety. What have they reserved in heaven? One tenth of heaven. Nothing more nothing less.
They have also earned hell for the remaining. God stands in debt to none.
Fine state of giving!
Why not give if you know Him by sight with all your heart and mind?
Why not give him for the very joy of giving? The least you can do as a human being is to give your joy: joy that is your heart in full flow. Nothing is held back and nothing is expected in return.
In that full flow no hell can stand. Whatever is of heaven's glory stand reflected on that smooth, crystal clear expression of joy between human beings.
Vain dream is it not? If there was joy on earth do you think Jerusalem would be as dismal as present?
benny

Inversion Principle

‘Thou shall worship no other God.’ It is just what it says. Nothing more and nothing less.
If man’s religion did consist only this, nothing could have been easier. Alas, we are living beings and unless we give life to words we cannot benefit from them. In this very process we undo the will of our supreme being. How do we put the Word into practice? One sect says thus, “ We honor God by our aggrandizement. So with wealth we may build megachurches and we install pastors to preach His word.” (Is it not a good thing, Ted?)
Another sect will show their own fine clothes and material wealth to say,” We are the living proof of God’s blessings. We have the presidents and the powers that be seek our counsel." So in effect these sects observe the first commandment thus: ‘Thou shall give lipservice to God but bow before Mammon, for a good measure.’
benny

A Printer's Devil

Three old travelers struck up conversation in an inn and found something common among them: they all had chosen their careers from reading of the same verse from the scriptures. Jacob a carpet dealer from Antioch could not believe his ears. So he asked Theophilos from Ephesus how he had put the verse from the gospel of St.John to his benefit. The man from Ephesus replied, the verse ‘what thou doest do quickly.” (13:27) was a warning. So I went into real estate and one investment led to another. Before long I came to own half the property market.”
“ Remarkable!” Jacob exclaimed,” the same advice I took to heart and the carpet that I knocked for a penny turned out to be the one belonging to Queen Cleopatra. It fetched me a fabulous sum and my phenomenal luck never flagged since. In trade circles I am called the Midas’ Touch.” They looked at the third that excused himself from giving his name. “ I also took to the same verse but I lost my hand in the bargain.”
” Having come before the sultan’s summer palace in the middle of a night I was all for seeking shelter. A lodging for the night. Seeing none guarding the door I went in. None I could find either within. Suddenly the verse came to my mind. It impressed me the time was of essence.” the third traveler explained morosely, “So I packed up all that silver I could lay hands on. Only when I stepped out I couldn’t see the way out for all the guards who were there.” He sighed.
A printer’s devil is what gets you when you misapply the Scriptures out of its strict controls. Truth of action keeps the intent and actions correctly matched.
benny

On infants

Newborn babies are totally dependent on others. In their vulnerability there is certain strength: they do not have to curry favor with the president of the Republic or play up to the power. (Those who run for the highest office must be seen holding a baby even though it is for the mass media.) If a President-candidate spoke like a baby do you think he will stand even a ghost of a chance to win the election? Let the baby talk and it cheers up every one who is around. No President can ever up that natural gift.
Being infant and infantile are not the same. An infant says:Goo! or something similar.
Infantile is what makes one think power gives him right to do evil.
benny

Critics Galore!-3

The felicitous stroke of Wilde’s wit is evident in his comment on Sir Herbert Tree’s Hamlet as being’ funny without being vulgar.’
On another occasion, after witnessing a deplorable mangling of Hamlet by an actor , Wilde is reported to have remarked that it would have been a fine time to settle the great controversy as to who wrote the play; one need merely have watched besides the graves of Shakespeare and Bacon to see which one turned over.
6.
Of one performance of Hamlet, the dramatic critic of the Denver Post, Eugene Field summed thus: So and so played Hamlet last night at the Tabor Grand. He played till one o’clock.”
Again it was Eugene Field summed up the dismal performance of Creston Clarke as King Lear. He had to say thus:” Mr. Clarke played the king all evening as though under constant fear that someone else was to play the ace.”
benny

W -11 d6

Does an infant care whether one is a man of title or a lumberjack? The only credential he asks for is simple: ‘Speak my language’. It is simple but how many of us are adequate to it?

benny

A Modern Fable

A burglar was reported to be holed up in the house of a merchant. Having tied up the master, who was noted for keeping his riches at home,-treaures of carpets, silver bars and jewels of rare sort he went through the house, room by room. The neighborhood was astir by the unusual activity going on in the house. One didn’t think any stranger could have gone in uninvited. “ Will not the inmates cry alarm if it were so?” “ Another was sure that the mistress of the house would have come to harm or ‘ may be gagged and in no position to cry for help.’ While neighbors hesitated, the burglar was coming to a realization.The merchant had lost his wits by sheer fright and his family members didn't know where the treasure was kept.( The merchant never trusted any other soul with the whereabouts of his wealth.)
At last one neighbor had the presence of mind to go in and confront the burglar. He said,” If you have got what you went in for, why not leave as silently? Do not harm the people.” The neighbors didn’t want police coming to their neighborhood as much as it was a nuisance.
You know what the burglar replied? “ If I leave without what I came in for what do you think my standing will be among other criminals? I shall be laughed out and I may have to look for someother career to support my lifestyle.”

Tailpiece: Thomas Donnelly, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, on the eve of the President’s visit to Vietnam compared the two wars. Citing Iraq's location in the volatile Middle East, the importance of its oil reserves and fears that the Sunni-Shiite battle dividing Iraq could spread throughout the region, he said the United States cannot afford to lose in — or even withdraw from — Iraq.
"We can't walk away from the Persian Gulf in the same way that we could in Southeast Asia," Donnelly said. "If we leave, it is clear that others will intervene."
benny

A Space Walk

By slanting rain
That beat a tattoo
The cobweb is shot through;
Yet its solitary occupant
A spider,
Reviews he, his options
Like an astronaut
who with care takes
The spacewalk
Among stars a-glitter,
At his feet.
benny

On War

Only recently Israel sent a missile and by a blunder of sorts killed 18 Palestinians including two children. It is in the list of several mistakes we have been hearing lately: friendly fire is another kind of mistake.
War is an enterprise of men that however does not create anything worthwhile as much as any person may work towards some purpose or common good. If any good comes out of war it is because of man and woman despite of its destructive power manage to create nevertheless conditions for life to go on.
So in terms of life and what noble purposes it can achieve, rest with humans and not in war per se.
Has glory or fame made war any less destructive or life nurturing? No. So all this talk about heroism is hogwash and a distraction.
In any war as it unfolds whoesoever be an interested party, if sane and endowed with an iota of fine sensibility should expect the unexpected. An enlightened nation therefore would never embark lightly on such a course, probably detrimental to their long-term goals because of loss of their manpower (that cannot be easily replaced), resources and goodwill among other nations.
Soldiers die if not by a hail of bullets by the very poison the clamor of war sweeps across the friend and foe alike. The ‘gulf-war syndrome’ is much more visible than the outbreak of Spanish flu that ravaged Europe after the soldiers had returned home after the WWI. Virus that spread all across the civilized parts of the world were spawned by the war. (Can anyone disprove otherwise?) On the first year the outbreak took only some hundreds and the year after the mortality numbers were in millions. In such a twilight world of death and desperation man’s thinking could not be said to be at its peak or clarity. So naturally another war more brutal and sustained would be played out within the space of a decade.
2.
All nations, having gone into a military adventure conduct in a manner that cuts across warring parties. They bury all their misconceived attempts to shore up their glory in a catch-all word called war.
Into it every mistake will fit. Incompetence of the generals and commanders alike; overweening ambition of politicians are equally at home.
The last mentioned species scrupulously woo the electorate but when it comes to war, any one they can either trick into by promise, or by some rule of law is a soldier and is a fair game.
"The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own": Aldous Huxley - English novelist and critic, 1894-1963
benny

W -11 d5

An infant has a clear vision, unsullied by prejudices of any sort; its own inexperience is strength. For in that baby rests the wisdom of his or her race.
Simplicity is in a childlike vision;
We look but see what we want to see.
Simplicity is in the heartbeats,
In the silent sleep of a child,
Watched over by every star in heaven.
benny

Two examples

Aurangazeb(1618-1707) shunned pleasure of every kind. He despised music and dismissed all the court musicians. One Friday the musicians said to him that they were going to bury music since his order had killed it. The emperor said true to form,” Bury it deep so that it may not raise its head again.”
Similar fate awaited nauchgirls (somewhat similar to fan -dancers) girls and women of easy virtue, who had to choose between exile and marriage.
Aurangazeb ruled for 48 years. For all his piety and deep religious fervor did not keep his rule going down in history as a sorry chapter that would have its consequences upon the Indian sub-continent. Within hundred years of his death the Mughal empire would be weakened into a puppet regime.)
Tailpiece: It would look Allah doesn’t care much for those who put their piety and religion before justice. The same holds true for God. George W. Bush like many other presidents before him may take the name of God but it is in vain. At least history proves the point abundantly clear.

benny

W -11 d4

The prophets who bring the word from the Highest must however convey it in human tongue for man to understand. Moses though well versed in statecraft law and folklore, as befitting a prince brought up in the palace of Egypt, admitted his slowness of speech. So he entrusted the matter to his half-brother Aaron. Aaron had a greater gift of the gab obviously.
The idea of any religion is plain. There ought to be no mistaking as to the intent of the Highest be it personified by a human agency or any other. It must at the same time be universal so humans wherever they may be found can grasp it. Otherwise it should be treated as private.
As any matter where human agency gets in between, there is likelihood of getting the message mixed up. As a typical example of this some Bible scholars would point to the hard sayings of Jesus. By lifting some of his sayings out of its context or holding back some other we make nonsense out of Jesus’ words. If the life of Jesus reveals love and humility let us try to imitate them in our own lives. These qualities cut across all religions and persuasions.
Tailpiece: It is in practice religion shows its ugly side.
benny

You Asked For It!

It was the era of McCarthism. Sri.V.K Krishna Menon led the Indian delegation of the U.N General Assembly in New York. He was invited to Meet The Media, a TV program moderated by one Mr. Anatole Stormwell, a favorite of the Senator McCarthy, and a nasty character to boot.
News reached Mr. Krishna Menon that the meeting was going to be a sort of inquisition by a panel, who were handpicked by Mr. Stormell and noted for their bias. Mr. Menon noted the names and collected some background information on his baiters.
On the day of interview Mr. Stormwell after a perfunctory welcome briefly traced the career of the guest, dwelling more on the aspects in a way to denigrate by innuendo, and said how he had become the favorite of Mr. Nehru. ”That is wonderful, Mr. Menon from log cabin to White House in a manner of speaking. But tell me Mr.Menon-is it true that you are a communist?”
There were a few raised eyebrows and looks of agitation among the panel and Mr. Menon replied,” Thank you Mr.Stormwell, I would like to return the compliment; you too, sir, have risen from humble beginnings, from selling newspapers in the streets to leading this distinguished panel. I believe that you draw a salary higher than that of the President of the United States. Now that is wonderful,Mr. Stormwell, but tell me is it true that you are a bastard?”
benny

Anecdotes

Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was noted for the indomitability of her spirit.
During the First World War, the Kaiser dreaming of European conquest, tried to impress her with Germany’s strength, “Our guardsmen,” he boasted,” are seven feet tall.”
“And when we open our dykes,” the queen replied quietly,” the waters are ten feet deep.”
9.
On the eve of the outbreak of WWI, Albert I of Belgium was entertaining a powerful ally. The chieftain from the Belgian Congo was well received at the palace and after dinner, in his honor the members of the royal orchestra filed into the hall on a given signal. While they sat down and began tuning their instruments the king asked what kind of music he wished to listen. “ My orchestra will be happy to oblige,” proposed the king.
“That’ s it,” replied the guest,” they are playing it now.”
The king nodded graciously and for the rest of the evening the assembled guests listened while the orchestra tuned up.”
benny

Week -11d2

Finest quality which any religion can impart to us is how to be better served as we strive to serve others as best as we can. It is possible we may fail in our service for some reason or other. Where I have failed the one who makes good of the shortfall shows goodwill. Nothing further by way of his religious belief I need ask for. He has achieved the highest goal any religion can hope for.
Tailpiece: Goodwill is love with sleeves rolled up. It is an action plan to get on with the task of living. Goodwill shown to us where we did our second best gives us an additional impetus to do better next time. Similarly we overlook others where they fail. Goodwill carries such spontaneity to make intrapersonal relationships sweet but not cloying.
benny

Week -11

The Earth as human settlement has ways of binding various peoples into one. What has New Orleans in common with Amsterdam? Both are below the sea level. New Orleans is 8’-0” below the sea. Each year it sinks by one inch or so. The recent catastrophe the Hurricane Katrina inflicted on its inhabitants brought home the fact how essential co-operation between nations are. The levees did not stand the fury of elements and so Dutch experts in water management were called in for advice.
In a manner of speaking there is no part of the earth that can be sustained by its inhabitants by their own level of knowledge. They for all their experience are incomplete. (Nature doesn’t keep all eggs in the same basket. It is a truism applicable to experience of species.) Shared experience of mankind has its peculiar thrusts and such peaks allow expertise in different areas scattered all along: the level of expertise the Netherlands can offer is different from what New Orleans has acquired. Hence a co-operative effort would always prove to be beneficial for all.
benny

Dear diary

The Church of Rome did every error it could as a matter of right. It played on the gullible with miracles; it forced on the reasonable with dogma at the threat of hellfire and damnation. What riches it laid up in store here by its many subterfuges could not withstand the simple verse from the New Testament. " Out of the mouths of babes..."
The Church has now a hell to pay to settle the many cases against it.
benny

Dear diary

Growing up on the dotted lines set by my father was a challenge. But I survived it. Going down the hill on my own is easy but terribly annoying. If I take a fall I may not survive it.
2.
Why? Life is so simple even a child can handle it.
3.
Agony aunts are not a phenomenon. It is a fact of life. Some will always confuse making a living for making-over.
benny

Broadway Follies

George S. Kaufman, (1889-1961) playwright, wit and critic.

Though critics hailed him as a genius he modestly considered his gift as merely a knack. He used to debunk talk about ‘art’ in the theatre. Ruth Gordon an actress once raved to him about a script. “There is no scenery at all,” she explained, “the audience has to imagine, I’m eating a dinner in a crowded restaurant. Then in scene two the audience imagines, I’m home in my bedroom.”
“And the second night,” said George, “you have to imagine there’s an audience.”
benny

Dear Diary

Online avatars do not make sense. Maturity was when we left off playing cops and robbers. Because virtual reality is out there now, does not mean we got to play roles.
* As many parallel universes you create you shall fail in all if you haven’t taken care of the real.
benny

Then and Now

There was a time becoming a sandwichman was only a step away from hitting the gutter; Ah times have changed! Now wearing a brandname, no matter whether it is Humbros or Kalvin Klein, is like hitting the topspot!
benny

Critics Galore!-2

An attempt was once made by some acquaintances to persuade George M Cohan to take a veteran actor in one of his companies. He heard their assertions as to his good behaviour, character et cetera, “ He is a fine fellow, all right” Cohan agreed,” Only one thing I’ ve got against him-he’s stage struck!”
3.
After the night of Claire de lune, an impossible play written by none other than Michael Strange, the wife of the then matinee idol John Barrymore.
Despite the presence of the Great Profile and Ethel, his sister the play was no go. None of the critics could admit why the thespian took on such a play except Mr. Whittaker of the Chicago Tribune who reviewed the play under the caption” For The Life Of Mike.”
benny

At The Babbler's Club

The Babbler’s Club was over the Corn Exchange and Basileus went into the hall where many members were seated. Aesop hesitated but Basileus urged him not to mind them. ‘They are like me, friendly and eager to hear news’. Aesop explained they all were well dressed and well fed. There was a smell of luxury about them to which he being a slave was not accustomed. “You are accustomed to me. Are you not?” “Yes, I serve you. It is different.”
“No, it is not,” Basileus, replied, ”You feel uncomfortable because you only see your position in life. Whereas we all are here to hear news from one another and exchange ideas.”
“But will they take me in? What do the rules say?” “The only rule of admittance we keep is this: each member has something to contribute to the benefit of others.”
Aesop need not have worried. They were happy to have him and pressed him to actively support the club thereafter.
When his turn came to speak he said, ”I am an orphan or was rather abandoned by my parents. I was found bundled up in front of a tavern with a note: he is a crybaby, feed him when he cries. One found me and looked after for some time. When I was six or so he sold me to one Domus in Thrace. Of course there was a note: He is a babbler. Hit him if he continues the habit. Then he looked around to say, ‘Well I am hit. I became a member of the Babbler’s Club.’” There was general merriment. Basileus was at the end congratulated by many members for bringing one who spoke sense and had a good sense of humor.
benny
(Selected from The Life of Aesop.( p.78)- www.lulu.com/content/344881)

Week-9

In one of the battles that Persia waged against Croesus a Lydian king, Herodotus narrates a curious incident. At the sacking of Sardis a Persian soldier saw the distraught king defenseless and vulnerable. So badly had the tide turned and the king did not care if he died or not. Even when the enemy soldier threatened to kill him he sat where he was. But his dumb son seeing the danger screamed. As if by a miracle the young man got his power of speech at that moment.
It is the moment that determines our worth. And we have no clue as to what we are capable of till that moment arrives. The moment of truth. We have only this moment: how shall we delineate truth?
benny

Critics Galore!

Heywood Brown while commenting on a German play, in 1917, was certain that Stein gave, in the leading role, the worst performance he had ever seen any stage. Stein sued for damages. Later it fell to his lot to review yet another performance by the same aggrieved Stein in another play. Brown in his review avoided mentioning his name till the last sentence which read:'Mr.Stein was not up to his standard.'
benny

Truth of Experience

Truth of experience connects us with what went before. But the million dollar question is do we make a proper job connecting it all together?
Truth of experience. That lie let to fester and grow in the past, as history is so replete with instances, shall not leave us without a struggle. The colonial masters of the British Raj divided the Hindus and Muslims and ruled them by fuelling their natural distrust of one another. What they created continues though the British have packed their bags and gone. Politics of the Post-Independance has found it convenient to play upto their communal sensibilities and as a result the evils of the past still continue. Those crusades of the middle ages do connect in the 21st century, under different circumstances and disguises with the concerted effort in Europe and elsewhere to fight terrorism.
benny

The Least In The Kingdom

Jai Paramartha was once asked by the ruler of Mattupetti to call on him whenever he passed through his domain. The ruler had come to Kothipalli on this side of Godavari as a guest of the king who made much of the mystic. The visiting ruler was impressed. Hence his invitation.
Months later it so happened that Jai Paramartha was in Mattupetti and having some leisure he went to the palace but he was refused entry by the guard who took him for a beggar because his dress was so simple and had no airs that he was used to. “Your ruler has given a standing invitation, and here I am.” JP said, “Go tell your master that I am here.”
“I am certain he will never let you in.” After a while he added, “I serve my master like my father before me served his father and it goes as old as the royal family. So I know his mind, I know whom my master will let in and whom he will not.”
“What If your master for once changed his mind? “Asked the mystic. “Then it is time that I served some body who doesn’t change” was the reply.

benny

Me-factor

If the times are bad don't keep complaining. What good have you done to make things better?
* A dog-eat-dog situation is where the society has only prepared its members to behave just like one.
benny

Spirit Of The Times

9.
Tantalus was like a second father to Basileus. Iadmon was often away on something or other and the boy always looked to Tantalus for guidance. Once he asked Tantalus of what stuff his spirit was made of. He said his tutor swore by it whereas he could not make head or tail of it. Tantalus knew the boy of 14 was serious. He explained spirit as something similar to heat that accompanied the lighting of the oil lamp. “The life of man burns and the light which we see from his actions would generate heat. The City of Athens is a city of lights, fame of which is supplied by so many men and women. It is the spirit of the city which gives heat in such intensity much more than, say in a small town.” Basileus thought over it and said, “It is the spirit of the times which is the key.”
“No, spirit of man is the key,” Tantalus said with a smile, ”If it were not for that how we can judge the quality of any age?”
Spirit of man gives his age and place its special flavor. What moves Sparta with their Spartan way of life would leave an Athenian cold.

(Selected from The Life of Aesop (p. 46)- www.lulu.com/content/344881)
benny

Spirit vs.Soul

A Matter Of Symmetry
The material universe is a puzzle where within an atom we find protons or elecrons following their path as scrupulously ordained as it were, subject to certain laws. If one did travel through microcosmos into macrocosmos and thence through the heart of an atom one could arrive at where he or she started from.
Space in the heart of an atom is same as in cosmos. It must naturally make a powerful impact on us. Our finite factor is like a safety mechanism- something similar to what body experiences when oxygen to the brain is shut off, by which we lose consciousness, to prevent us from fully grasping the threshold of Nullity or that infinite limit. Neverthelss our material make up has its own symmetry. In a Full Circle going up through macro cosmos or down through micro cosmos would mean nothing but for our consciousness hitching a ride on the universal consciousness. ( Wakeful we are actively seeking our own direction. While asleep we are merely passive.)

Going one way I might say I am following where my spirit is leading; In the other direction I may say that it is my soul’s delight. One is a high road and the other a low road.
What would that in practical terms mean? In order to succeed in life one must know how the system works. Making use of opportunities and connections to get ahead show one’s awareness of the external world. One may disregard every control or principle in order to gain one’s objectives. One may defend one’s actions by saying that he or she is a realist to take on the world in its terms. Whereas you may think otherwise. You cannot allow yourself to a course of action against your principles and rules of conduct in which you have been brought up. Accordingly you have set a standard for success where you satisfy your principles and can be at ease with your actions. In your case you let the world take you at your terms while another take the world in its terms. Spirit is that road which lets any one take the world as it is. Spirit takes you to interact with the external world. It is a visible life. Whereas Soul is that pathway from which you let the world look into your inner life.
Great works of art, music and literature hold mirror to your soul. You see a glimpse of your own, perhaps a little more clear.
benny

At The Pearly Gates

When St. Peter went on vacation Archangel Gabriel took over the charge of the guest list. Those souls who came in would knock at the Pearly gates. Some were admitted and some were turned back. Satan watched it with interest.
Later he struck up conversation with the keeper of the gate and asked if he knew exactly the House rules. Gabriel said in between his tasks that he played by the ear. One who came in rags was turned off. “ That was Lazarus and he wants to be in because he was poor all his life.”
“Oh the one whose sores were licked by the dogs?” Satan knew his Bible and he gave a short laugh. “ What was your excuse for turning him down?” The archangel replied that he ought to be treated for his physical condition. “So I sent him down to be cured of his diseased body.”
Then came John the Baptist carrying his head and to Satan’ s amazement Gabriel let him in.
“Why him?”
Archangel Gabriel replied,” I asked, ‘So you want to be let in because you lost your head while in service?’ ”
“ He said, yes?”
“ No, he just wanted to know why?” Gabriel replied with a chuckle. “ How can I refuse one who seeks answers?”
benny
(Selected from Fablescape )

Stretching Truth A Little

“Ecco homo!” Rabbi Weiss one morning exclaimed laying aside his papers. I waited for him to explain which, as I had anticipated, he did. He patted his luxuriant white beard and said, “ Mattan this Armenian Jew! He is now become the Mayor. I had long ago warned him of coming to a bad end. Now he has gone and proved me wrong!”
That name seemed to ring a bell. “ Wasn’t his grand father who ended up in a gulag?” The rabbi nodded.
I added, “And a terrible poet to boot. He wrote, ‘Lament from the Lost Ark.’ Remember?”
“ Who doesn’t know the lines, Lark, lark is it you? / It is me again; / I’m set down as Cain/
My love for Mark it’s true. And so on.” I quoted from memory.
“Please refrain from quoting his lines while we call on Mattan this afternoon,” Benn Weiss cautioned me. I replied, “ Mum is the word.”
“Once his father was so worried about him.” Rabbi Weiss ruminated, “ that he would do such a thing as serve the public.” “Isn’t serving the public a good thing?”
“Yes, Jake,” my friend continued,” Not in case of Mattan. He will beggar the public funds as he did with his father’s life savings.”
“So we are going to meet a crook?” Rabbi Weiss was deep in thought. “I shall not quote poetry.” I assured my friend, ”Perhaps a joke or two when the time calls for it?”
The rabbi nodded his head.
Later in the evening while the mayor and the rabbi had exhausted the topics I asked,” Have you heard about a fellow who stole the white elephant of the King of Siam for a lark? When the law caught up with him he could only say, ‘It was all a mistake, fellows!’
“He is now in Sing- Sing on account of a lark.”

benny

W-10day7

It was Benjamin Disraeli who dunned the emerging science of Statistics as follows,” Lies, Damn Lies! Statistics!”
Numbers often tell lies.
benny

W-50day2

Marshal Ney (b.1769) faced the firing squad with the courage to be expected of ‘the bravest of the brave.’ When his death sentence was read to him in the small hours of 7 December 1815 he interrupted the recital of his former titles with, ”what good can this do? Marshal Ney-then a heap of dust, that is all.”
benny

Us and Them

W-5 day2.
"... If whole gamut of experience of our species each individual may express, even so much it is an instinctive act, it stands to reason that our mind also, in broader terms is representative in nature. Holding a viewpoint (ref: W3, D2) would mean each individual takes note of his or her own immediate objectives in time and place against a landscape that has certain characteristics unique to him or her. For example Mahatma Gandhi resorting to non-violence was understandable. Being born and bred in a land that had given birth Buddhism and Jainism is it to be wondered at if Bapu had embraced Ahimsa as his weapon? It must have seemed so proper -and right too, to the masses more or less weaned on spiritual truths taught by so many savants of yore.
Vladimir I. Lenin was a child of his times and place as Gandhi was."
How Lenin transformed his experience as an ideologue (helped by his mentors) has is own distinctness. 'The end justified the means': so killing and disinformation were all permitted. For Gandhi whose credo was 'Truth always triumphs', the Bolshevics must have seemed like a devil's brigade. Martin Luther King Jr. was inspired by the Gandhian idealism but set in American context.

It must be ego who puts one at the driver's seat but if one cannot drive carefully and take passengers to the destination the driver merely wastes everybodys time including his own.
benny

W-10d6

A Spartan of Ancient Greece did not fight merely for himself. But also for others. His Spartan living began from the day he was born and his whole life was spent in service of the city-state. What moral sense one can hold without giving the individual his due?
A nation may hold me under its obligation this much and no further. It may be the most enlightened and noble. Even so I must never sell myself to its bondage.
Coming back to Sparta, the city-state with its scant regard for individual liberty did a terrible mistake. There was no dissenting voice to make it take a warning or reexamine its perilous path. The state that let the weak and sickly to perish and admitted only fighting men ( and women to give birth to more of the same) could not have known democracy; The Spartans never learnt to govern by consent but instead spent their lives to fight wars. It earned them victory and slaves. They thrived on slave labor on a massive scale that was a pointer to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.
benny

Idiot's Delight-a play by Robert E. Sherwood

Who discovered laughter? The first man who realized he had, in branching off from the family of apes, left his better nature behind?
benny

w49day3

Ralph Waldo Emerson well versed in philosophy, poetry and many other disciplines that the label of savant adequately expresses him, was however at a loss in leading a female calf into the barn. His son Edward once went to his help and he grabbed the animal by the ear while his father pushed from behind. While they were stumped an Irish servant girl came to their rescue. With an amused glance at the perspiring philosopher she thrust a finger into the calf’s mouth and the animal enticed by this maternal imitation dutifully followed her into the barn.
After cleaning himself up he paid a tribute to the servant girl in his journal thus: ‘I like people who can do things.’
benny

W-50

Caux Principes is a declaration made by world business leaders in 1986 in Caux, Switzerland to affirm business ethics for a post Cold War world. The code that was drawn up emphasized the Japanese concept of Kyosei(living and working together for common good.) Business behavior for a better world as the Principles envisioned has also the Western concept of human dignity at its core. The code exhorted for ‘centrality of moral values’ in economic decision-making.
What is globalization and international business without holding the lowest denominator for their raison d’etre in sights? Man as consumer, labor and producer may take on as many roles. Without getting that right nothing will work to satisfaction. The end user in Thailand is as important as the President of the Philips Electronics.
Industrial disasters whether at Chernobyl or at Bhopal cannot be avoided altogether. As and when such accidents take place one has to assume wider geographical areas and generations shall be affected than what official accounts might indicate. It does not matter whether was by chance or by some false sense of economy of those who are responsible. They have caused a great loss to the host nation. By the same token what profits reaped by multinationals in a Third World country are to be shared by the host nation as well. In a fair and equitable fashion.
Introducing fast foods in regions where a laid back style is the norm and using strong-arm tactics to change the food habits of the youth ‘to be cool’ must be considered as unethical. Of course culture is always in a flux and it must work spontaneously from within by those who are the inheritors of the particular culture and not by Nike, Levis or McDonalds. Similarly renting large tracts of lands for agribusiness multinational may cripple traditional agricultural practices. Remember how Britain swallowed up great parts of Africa in the 19th Century and well into the early part of 20th Century. For all their beggaring the native states whether in Africa or India they are now left with the realty: Great Britain is as much a multicultural society directly as a result.
Tailpiece: The question of face veils will be as much as hot as the Poll Tax.

Dear Diary

Did I spend too long reading the Bible because my father believed it as God’s Word? His God is surely not what I hold in my own life. The whole tenor of my life I find resonate in the verse: ‘None of these things move me’. A stoic of old could have said it. But I have come upon it because I had made reading the Bible in my adolescent years, a habit and a painful necessity.

benny

W-51day6

One day James Joyce was approached by an admirer in Zurich and he said, ”May I kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses?” The Irish author somewhat bashfully replied,
”No, it did lots of other things too.”
Joyce had long ago turned his back on the land of his fathers because he felt stifled in that narrow parochialism of his countrymen. He lived in genteel poverty true to his personal vision. Ulysses was the result. Now Ireland claims him as one of their great sons. Had he stuck to the place and wrote for a mead of praise he would have been forgotten even before he was dead.
James Joyce the man. Everything else was beside the point.
benny

Rich vs Poor

No man is ever so rich enough who could stand apart from others to say:" I owe nothing to any one. I am untouched by anything of this world." Why then this insolent devil-may care attitude?
No man is ever so poor enough to say, " I am so impoverished that the world or its experience cannot so much as give its know-how. " Why would the poor waste time complaining of hard times if one has so much at one's beck and call?
benny

W-52

One of the long enduring myths, which man cannot shake off, despite of experience to otherwise, is how a single man by himself may create history. He works with events and also guides them. Yes. But to add his something new (to what has been around) or keep it as apart is impossible.
One characteristic of Woodrow Wilson’s character was his certitude that he was right. He was full of idealism and came to the presidency on the belief God put him there. His believed in himself as Gods instrument to make America great. So he intervened in the internal affairs of Mexico in order to bolster democracy. In 1914 U.S Marines landed in Vera Cruz. Latin Americans did not see it in the way as the crusading spirit of Wilson: isolationism from the international affairs was over.
Wilson fought tooth and nail to keep his country from the World War I. Influx of immigrants from Austria and Hungary and Southern and Eastern Europe had hit the peak when he took office in 1913. On one hand he did not wish to upset these ethnic minorities, which had found their home in America. By 1915 most American banking was tied up with British and French interests. Which course he took is too well known to merit repetition here. His ideals in restoring democracy in South of the border led to dollar diplomacy; where he wanted to keep neutral he was pitched into the thick of a broil against his will.
Who pulls whom? Who is the cart and who is the ass?
benny

Pillars of the State

Lord Palmerston, Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount (1774-1865)
While in charge of the War Office, he came under criticism from the radical MP’s for keeping a standing army even after the threat of Bonaparte was long past. Some of the Tories also sided with them and demanded that the military costs should be drastically reduced. Palmerston reminded them that the Army always became unpopular after every war was over and told them the story of the soldiers who marched out of London against the Jacobites in 1745.
“There go our brave guards! There go the pillars of the State.” Cried the people.
“Aye, “said one of the veterans, “but when we have licked the enemy the cry will be. ‘There go the caterpillars of the State.”
benny

Fablescape

Reverence For Life

Jai Paramartha an Indian mystic was once on pilgrimage to various shrines along the Coromandel Coast. In one place he and his companion were taken to a hill. They were in time to see the priest who regularly fed the kites with meat. They watched with interest the birds eat their fill. While they climbed down his companion said that the locals worshiped the scavenger-birds as holy. He also added “But their meat is of no use. Inedible. It is a fact.”
“Where did you get that for a fact, friend?” the mystic wanted to know. He hemmed and hawed and said, ”It is a common knowledge.” “Where do these kites, scavengers as they are, go when they die?” “They fall to earth for sure.” “So they are of some use to earth even while dead?”
“Gampa Guru! “ exclaimed his friend in exasperation,” I only meant to say their meat is of no use to us.”
Later the local rajah invited them to be his guests for a while. While chilling out in his gardens Jai Paramartha pointed out to an alligator that was being fed by rajah’s attendant. “See Punya,” the mystic explained,” how devout the animal is? It knows that it is eating the carcass of what was once a living thing.” “So?”
“It is weeping even as it eats. Such reverence!”
His companion went into fits of laughter. “ It is not crying.” “You say some facts. Must you also tell me how I must feel? ” Jai Paramartha said, ”Pity is what those alligators made me feel. My feeling cares not for facts.”
At the end they were back in the village adjoining their own. Coming across some huts gutted by fire Gampa Guru explained how the brushfire had spread and destroyed parts of the village. “Lucky we were spared.” Punya commented. Someone in the meantime called out his name. To his surprise it was his uncle who ran towards him to convey the bad news. Gampa Guru saw Punya changing color from shock. Gampa Guru went quickly towards his companion who cried, “My relative is no more! He only had recently moved to these parts. How terrible. So young and before he could settle down in life!” Gampa Guru expressed his sympathy and led his friend on.
Life Signs is like a rope of many strands. Its power comes from the way we are connected to one another. This power is maintained and made stronger by our ability to share our emotions.
Truth And Imagination
Take poetry for example. How can any poem move us if it were not that quality? We are able to feel for the fall of a sparrow or shudder at the sight of a tiger stalking his prey. A poet with an eye for detail and ear for music paints a picture: not a word is out of place and in a few words the effect is emotionally charged. (How skillfully he is able to convey his emotions!)
The poet’s skill is matched in the way we can see it as vivid as he intended. Also feel it because of a shared experience. There at the heart of it all is truth since it connects the poet and the reader. Truth of experience.
benny