Becoming Socially Sentient Now

For centuries mankind has been culpable to a way of life through enormous contributions in augmenting the society’s potential to his best interest. From as is to as it should be, humanity’s disposition has characterized a constitution that we call society. On route to action, learning & development, ideation, communication and implementation in a sundry of subjects, man has revealed social behavior. In his lifespan of understanding the essentials for existence, man has consciously and willingly fevered social settings with an acceding eye or by fulfillment through belligerence. In his longing for satisfaction through a coconut of desires, peace has hardly been man’s drive to improve and sustain social camaraderie. Abuse and antagonism on the other hand have been his motivators to an uncanny change. Be it fallacy and extremism, transgression and despotism, befouling the nature for mercenary or modern day warfare and nuclear proliferation, all have been illustrations of an injurious mind.

Over the passage of time, in the darkness of night and through the shining sunlight, man has each day grown cruel to himself, only to get farther away from his inmost self, which is his sole identity. Someone has rightly said that time never stops for anyone. It only adjudicates man’s actions as vigilant pastor of the supernatural power. In hue and cry or happiness and joy, time conveys myriad meanings in its musical tick-tock. It is for man to gather time’s lessons and learn to decipher his actions and reactions to make reparations in himself and his surroundings. Evolving such astuteness now is being sensitive to social needs and trying to become sentient to blazing social issues. Today our society is not just an identity of a particular community but a global abode that is sending SOS each day to man to stop, save, sustain as a chamberlain of humanity. It is for man to use his mind’s wisdom and his heart’s benevolence and compassion to contribute incrementally to set forth an example for the entire fraternity to follow. 

The recent BP oil massacre in the Gulf of Mexico is a fresh example of how man is daunting his own soil. Not surprisingly enough this incident took place just few months later when United Nations declared the year 2010 as the year of Biodiversity. Affecting a large number of plant and animal species deep in the ocean, this episode is a reminder to man to be alert to the sensitivities of his habitat. This incident and many others over the years are stimulus for man to transform his behavior before it becomes overbearing for creation to nurture life. It is like the saying, if you give some, you get some. For some people such outlook becomes precept of life. The significance of contribution however differs from man to man. Ed Stafford, the British explorer who is currently walking the Amazon and is scheduled to finish his expedition this August is a unique example of human endeavor for conserving nature. Today he is a role model and an inspiration for thousands, many among them are young school children whom Stafford helps aware of the life in rainforests. His Amazon’s adventure blog for kids is part of the Prince of Wales Rainforests project for schools that is leading a social cause against tropical deforestation and climate change. With two most recent instances of how man can lead change through his actions and intentions shows his exceptional strength to cue social change. 

Also, in this process of being (what we really are) and becoming (our potential to be) socially conscious, man has the power to self-motivate or get inspired by good virtues to end this war against survival. He has the key to all those locks that fasten free passage for positive human relations, which are the building blocks of the society. Most importantly man has the gift to perceive through his senses that if he has to begin such transition, it has to be now. Leaving things for the future may only account to more problems; it wouldn’t fix the ones that we are facing today. Learning to act now and voluntarily contributing in crisis intervention at individual or group level, in family, community or national level can save mankind from further regression. It shall serve as a turning point in man’s nature for nature. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” 

Copyright (c) 2009-present Dharbarkha.blogspot

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The Great Socrates

A savant of western philosophy in ancient Greece, Socrates’ quest for life is beautifully versed as, “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves and the world around us”. Today such enlightenment is a treasure for those who believe perspicacity of the surroundings to be paragon of the self. Applying Socratic art of discernment is like an internal compass that can draw our true north, while awakening us to quandaries and solutions through reasoning and rendition. What Socrates always believed in, was questioning about things, what, how and why the way they happen. With an unfastened vision on life, Socratic teachings are like a phenomenon, that if observed can leverage life’s blueprint. As a philosopher he wandered for the unknown, which according to him could be derived from the known. He wasn’t a Management guru, relationship expert or diplomat but his back in the day social prognosis can be an invaluable diagnose to our apprehensions, perceptions and actions in the present day. Socrates’ idea of truth and knowledge was not hearsay but testimony of the actual. Realizing and implementing such insight into practice is one way we can ease our adaptation to change in our own life, lives of other people and the macrocosm. 

If we habituate to Socratic state of mind by putting ourselves to test through open-ended questions related to our thoughts, feelings and actions, or even engage in genesis for our problems and situations, we in a way initiate self-management. Being conscious through such SWOT, we liberate ourselves of fears and biases, attempt at unlearning old practices and learn to be part of a distinctive genre. Such avant-garde exploration of the unknown through self questioning and rumination for the way we are, the way we act, the influence of other’s behavior on us and the means by which we construe the creation around us, we can build acumen as a competitive advantage only to contribute mindfully and intently to the society. This Socratic love for wisdom and intellectualism in each of us can further shape our acuity to live life differently by learning to focus on cause rather than just the effect. So if we relied on grapevine communications more often at work or felt productively occupied with gossip in familial relationships, we will realize that such information spreads like fire, it may have good or bad effect because it’s just a rumor but its cause most of the time remains uncertain as such communication carries partial information, which only astounds problems and gaps and does not improve these.   

Elucidating admiration for Socratic logic and synthesis further, if we feel exhilarated and secured with material wealth, cash on over ambitions to prove our net worth, why do most of us feel stressed out and empty inside-out ? Possibly here too we emphasize on effect, forgetting the cause for such consequence. Why it is that ego, false prestige and greed makes one counterfeit themselves at the cost of sensitive relations? Why jealousy or one-upmanship among parent-child relation leads to clashes? Besides why do often people camouflage in public, while uncovering there real self privately? Also, are ethics and moral values precepts that only a few of us need to follow? Or is our society undergoing an intimidating phase of double standards? These are some questions that as direct dialogue can head start self examination and aid analysis of situations in one’s life. Settings, station and level of understanding of life, ourselves and of people around may differ though. However developing such sagacity is what Socrates called wisdom to answer the enigma of life. 

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot  

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Adoption Is A Detour Of Love

As a little girl holding a newborn in my tiny arms was just as sufficing as playing with a new doll. Years later being a mother I felt the joy of million bucks to caress my son to feel his silk in my arms and his chaste in my heart. The weave of emotions that bonded us together was stronger and tighter than the umbilical chord that connected us for nine long months. Since then my home has the aura of my baby’s love and his soulful hugs. Parenting in my view is an enjoying endurance that enshrines us with blessedness. It's a developmental process that consecrates us with positive energy to rear children with love, no matter if they are birthed or adopted. Besides, motherhood being a poignant quality in parenting is like a divine endowment to every woman on this earth who can vent her maternal instincts to simulate colors through sweet lullabies. As a nectar of the spirit, motherhood is every woman’s yearn to cradle life in buoyant emotions, which in a way defines maternity as not just the joy of placenta but the state of motherliness in a woman. The eyes that see a child grow each day, the hands that imbibe faith in religion, peace for humanity, and the heart that seeks these values bud into strength of character, indeed is karma incomparable.

Maternity be it naturally or through fosterage is sharing fervor for raising a child with enriched opportunities. Maternity is also maturity to appreciate the inner wisdom and the power of expression that foments relationships irrespective of the ability to gestate. Like mother Mary who chose to rear Jesus as her own flesh and blood and Yashodha for whom Krishna’s pranks were more enchanting than the whole universe, there is cosmic momentum in any foster relationship. Besides a legal formality of entering into a new parent-child relationship, adoption is also celestial that unites souls across boundaries and beyond destinies. As a process of progression in nursing and nourishing a child, adoption facilitates felicity and fruition in the lineage of humanity. Couples who adopt children to raise them as their own express resilient emotions and rectitude of mind. Their adoptive effort goes a long way in contributing to a humane society where love is not bound by blood. Such unrelated yet unconditional involvement through adoption becomes an apostle of divinity in the society where thoughts and feelings are sometimes fabricated through superficial relationships. 

Adoption in a way is also karmic intervention that fills up vacuums in lives through spreading uncountable smiles. Such sensibility to embrace change in perception and action gives way to happiness over melancholy. In such elucidation, adoption becomes an endorsement of hope and feat that unfolds a child and an adoptive family to a distinctive semblance in life. With a nest of joy and serendipity that has familial security and happiness of home for a child shows the infinite power of adoption that accredits a couple  with compassion, abandons negativity and fears, and empowers a woman while making her capable of motherhood to save her from an emotional erosion. On opening up to such an ethereal vision, we adept ourselves to realize God’s ubiquitous power and his unique ways of making one a mom, ma, ‘la-madre’ or ‘amma’, an identity not through anatomy but the capacity to bestow love and honor a celebration called adoption. 

Copyright (c) 2009-present Dharbarkha.blogspot  

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