Dharma - solid/fluid duality

The was the title of one of my discussion sessions in Nottingham Mandir (contact me for details) was Dharma - the internal Kurkshetra. It started with the simple question: What is Dharma? How would you define it? The group came up with several definitions: duty, that which sustains the natural order of the universe, internal peace and righteousness. What I really want to put out there is an idea that emerged which baffled about half the participants.

What do I want to do with my life?

What do I want to do with my life? A question I have been asking myself a lot post results day.. I go to university in September, I graduate, I get a job, get married, settle down with family and kids and then live out the rest of my life. Seems like an ideal, normal life. In reality I’m not even 100% sure what course I want to do at university! Let alone after. In a book I recently read (Sadhana of Service by Eknath Ranade) the author encourages the reader to find a focus or an aim in their life as soon as possible and dedicate their whole life to that purpose. As Swami Vivekananda said:

"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.”

Happiness is a mood, not a destination.

Sat working on my presentation in the lounge while my sister was watching television was rather distracting but at one moment I heard a speech by one of the characters in the American programme she was watching that caught my attention. "Happiness is a mood. It's a condition, it's not a destination. It's like being tired or hungry -- it's not permanent, It comes and goes and that's ok. And I think if people thought about it that way, they'd find happiness a lot more often."

Just Do It

This week concludes the SIP experience and ends quite an exhilarating 7 weeks in terms of personal development, practical experiences and tangible progress which I have made.

Due to the nature of my project, sometimes it has felt as if my personal objectives have been hijacked by the objectives of the project but I guess this was the real skill in how can I ensure than I remain committed equally to both. In particular, I have struggled with personal objectives such as weekly bhojan at a Sangh family’s home, researching a current affairs topic and completing the community emersion programme whereby I was expected to visit another community programme outside of Sangh.

Fear

Over the past week and throughout our lives we have all seen things which made us think “that’s wrong. That should not be allowed to happen.” But have we done something about it? Have we tried to change it?

The attitude of “what’s the point?” “What difference can I make?” is quite common.

Why?

I think it’s partly because people feel they are on their own when they want to change something or make a difference in the world. Truth is (as I’ve learnt though my SIP experience) there are probably a lot of people who would like to get involved in the some way but don’t know how to go about doing it.

The practice of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

After posting the previous blog, I thought deeper into the subject. Do I as an individual, practice Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, literally becoming engrossed into it? Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam means to me a world where everyone can work together for the progress of the society they live in regardless of race, religion and gender, if one requires help, then one would receive it and these actions should be performed with a pure heart and without any doubts.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam - “The whole world is one family”

This statement is far from becoming a reality. Many wars are happening across the Middle East, especially with the recent Syrian and Yemini uprisings. The civil war in Sudan, which lead to the formation of North, and South Sudan. Post war attacks are still occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So many crimes, upsets and tragedies make this statement somewhat difficult to believe. Now, the latest spark of violence that’s happening literally on our doorsteps are the UK Riots. Something that began with a peaceful protest over the controversial killing of 29-year-old Mark Duggan has now lead to violent sporadic outbursts of violence across major cities in the UK.

Streets have become vandalised, shops looted and people’s livelihoods have been destroyed, all for what? To steal a few trainers from Footlocker? Or grab a 32“ LCD television from Currys? I think there a number of reasons, that have resulted in these riots, lack of education, Police becoming less authoritative but most importantly, lack of family values.

We are a civilized nation.

On 25th May 2001 peaceful protests began in Greece. By the 29th of June they had turned violent; bins were set on fire, police were attacked with stones and Molotov cocktails. But why were they protesting/rioting in the first place?

Reasons for the Greek riots:

1. Austerity measures. The Greek government planned to save 30 billion euros in one year through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
2. The people were angry. Politicians mismanaged the economy, why should the public have to pay?
3. High unemployment:
1. Over 40% of young Greeks are unemployed.
2. 15.8% of Greeks are unemployed in comparison to the Eurozone average of 9.9%.
4. Failing industry (negative growth for the past three years)
5. Failing economy -4.5% growth in GDP in 2010
6. Many commentators also said it was partly due to underlying social tensions i.e. the rich-poor divide.

Inception - The power of words

The inspiration behind this blog is a Karyashalla (workshop) at SSV 2011. Four teams (of about 18) were given the task of crossing a hall without any of their members touching the floor. They had 15 mins and three chairs. Their brief was “get as many people across as possible”. For those of you who are familiar with this the most common technique is to take two people across using the chairs and then for one person to come back using the chairs then take another person across and so on. Indeed, this is what all the teams did for the first 5 mins (n which time they got 5 people across in total). As this time one of the instructors paused the activity and pointed this out to the teams and emphasised that they only had ten mins left and at their current rate they would only get ten more people out of 70 over. The reaction of the participants was to continue to work as they were but to try to speed up. From an external view point the solution was clear.

Riots in Croydon

Having never lived through anything like this that I can remember, yesterday was one of the most heart pounding experiences I have ever been through. My first day back from SSV started very relaxed as I slept for a good while, recovering from the lack of sleep from the past 10 days. I woke up to an empty house and got on with my normal routine through the day.

My sister then called when she was on her way home from north London almost ordering me, saying I'm not allowed to go to the gym or to town for the next few days. I didn't argue and turned on the news to see what was happening and sat in disbelief as I saw pictures of youths trashing shops and standing off with police. I then got a call from my dad asking me to pick him up from work, which is near enough to these riot areas. Driving to him wasn't a problem but getting back was when the trouble started.

A Reflection on SSV

Having returned home from SSV and rather than looking back particularly at my personal experiences of the varg, there was one particular point of interests from a few which I felt strongly about.

Firstly, as a Praveen Varsh swayamsevak , i defiantly realised the step up in the quality of the bauaddhik and of the ‘char cha’ sessions. Despite only briefly doing so, we were actually able to take a step back and see Sangh for what it is. What is its structure, its ideology and distinguish the relationship between shakha and Sangh. Although the discussions still left me with many questions in my mind, I was still glad that such topics were at least attended to.