Corruption, Poverty & Greed (CPG)

(A Brilliant answer by Aniket Vhavale, worth reading and thinking about)



When there is a shortage of wealth we cannot prevent corruption. Where the population is large and wealth scarce, people find ways and means to own wealth; they care little for the right ways and means. If you want to do away with corruption, then stop worrying about corruption, because corruption is a byproduct.



We have nothing to do with it. But all the politicians, all the saints, are busy fighting corruption. They say, “We are determined to end corruption.” But the real problem is different — it is lack of wealth. Corruption is the natural consequence of poverty. If there are a thousand persons here and there is food enough only for ten, do you think there will be no attempts at procuring food through stealing?



Dr. Frankel has written a small book of his memoirs. Dr. Frankel was a psychologist who was thrown into one of Hitler’s concentration camps. Mind you, Hitler was a socialist. Dr. Frankel says in his memoirs that it was in that prison camp that he came to see the real face of man. The prisoners were given only one meal in twenty-four hours, and that too was very meager. They were almost being starved. Dr. Frankel says that he saw people known as great poets, writers, physicians and engineers, stealing pieces of bread from the bags of their fellow prisoners during the nighttime. Among them were men highly respected for their character and moral values, men who held high offices like that of the mayor of a city, and they were seen begging for a cigarette on bended knees — and unashamedly. And none of them thought that he was doing anything wrong.



Writing about himself, the famous psychologist says that the bread he was given was so little that it never satiated his hunger; he was always in a state a semi-starvation. So he broke the bread into a number of small pieces to be eaten at small intervals of time so they would last for twenty-four hours. And he found that day in and day out he only thought of bread and nothing else. He forgot all about God and soul, consciousness and unconsciousness, analysis and psychology, and the rest of it — which had been the most significant things of his life. In Hitler’s concentration camp he realized that bread was everything and nothing else mattered. Frankel also admits that he was not sure that if given the opportunity he would not have stolen another’s bread.



Bribery, corruption and black marketing only prove the fact that there are too many people and too little goods. We refuse to understand this simple fact. Corruption is not a disease, it is just a symptom of a disease which is deep-rooted. When a man has a fever, it is said that he is “down with fever”. Fever itself is taken for the disease. But in reality fever is a symptom, an indication of some deep disorder in the physiology of the man who is running a temperature. Similarly, corruption is a symptom of a social disease — poverty.



But the politician and the priest believe that corruption can be ended without caring for production and population control. They say that God is sending more and more men to this earth. If God is responsible for our increasing population, then he is the most corrupting factor today, because corruption grows with the growing population. We have to restrict, even to stop this ever-flowing gift of God. We have to tell him, “Enough is enough; we don’t need more men. And if you send more, then give to each one of them

ten acres of land and a factory to work with.”



People are not immoral, as the priests and politicians would have us believe. It is the situation that is immoral. No man is immoral. Really, man is neither moral nor immoral, but the situation is immoral. And a person can be moral in an immoral situation if he strives hard, but then his whole life will be wasted in the very effort. He will not be able to do anything else. He will somehow save himself from being immoral. He will, with tremendous effort, suppress the temptation to steal; that is all he will achieve. So it is a question of changing the situation, because really the situation is immoral. No amount of anti-corruption campaigns are going to succeed if the situation is not changed. But if production grows and wealth is plentiful, corruption will go by itself. Nobody will steal if there is an abundance of wealth in the society.



(These are not my words, but a reply I found on someone else's post, which I found greatly interesting. Hence sharing it)

Nonsense Love

If someone keeps having second thoughts about a person, is it really Love? Or is just attachment that's keeping you stuck to that person?
In today's superficial world, where it's difficult to find genuine people, when the soul meets other caring concerned souls, we get attached to them. That person becomes more of a habit, like chocolate that you want to eat whenever you feel bummed and low. But does that mean that you really love that person? If one did then they would be stuck to that one chocolate only at all times. Not just crave for it only when one is down and put out.
Isn't real love where one is constantly thinking about a person, waiting and wanting, doubting yet forgiving, simply sighing, and torturing oneself with someone else's thought??
Love seems to have become elusive and exclusive. It's attachment and habit that's easy on the heart and mind nowadays. No wonder people today run away from love, who wants to go through all that nonsense and get hurt.
But then, nonsense is what this life really is. People trying to make sense are only fooling themselves ;)

Adapt or die

Are we, Humans, invincible? We live on, cocooned and secure in our belief that the World will go on, come hell or high water... the Earth will keep spinning, the Sun will keep shining, the air will keep blowing.
People who predict the doomsday, end of the world etc are ridiculed and laughed off as lunatics. Maybe most of them are. Who knows!
But still the fact remains that the World we know, is changing. Increasing frequency of natural disasters, whole species of animals dying off mysteriously, economies crashing, so many people living without any hope... are these indicators of a growing world? I think not.
We have known about the previous changes in Earth through history. And always the rule of this Earth has been - adapt or die.
The winds of change are coming, the indicators of it have already started to arrive. Our Earth is ready for a change, a new phase. Anyone who denies this is either too stupid or blind. And this change invariably could have been our fault too. Humans and our greed, sapping the very resources, the energy of this planet... without any thought or consideration!
Yes, we are technologically advanced, but how long can the inevitable be postponed? Maybe the postponement is what has brought us here today, so far.
I really don't know if God will ever return to this Earth. Maybe He's just given up on us. He's left us alone. The opposite of Love isn't hate, it's indifference.

I pray that when the change does come, people are strong enough to adapt, not die.

Dark Night

Dark night - the unknown... filled with our own fears, doubts and uncertainties, our demons.

Everything in Life is like a dark night. We don't know what it's going to be like, yet we plunge into that darkness. Everyday is a dark night, we don't know what will happen, yet we wake up each morning and live. Everything new that we get into is a dark night. We are not sure of how it's going to be, yet we take that first step.

Life itself is a dark night. All we can do is believe and have faith in ourselves and in God. We can either plunge into the dark night with Faith in our hearts, that everything will work out and will be fine... or with Fear, fear that will plague us with doubts, for ourselves and for those around us. Having doubt is not wrong, after all we are Humans. But succumbing to those doubts, holding on to them and living with them, that is wrong.

We can fill our dark night with the light of Faith or with snakes and other demons that will only keep increasing our fear even more - it's our choice.

This is what I learned from Brida. And I choose to fill all my dark nights with the light of Faith. What about you??

Fountain of Youth

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog about importance of looks and how there's no fountain of youth. And that got me thinking.
I would like to say that there is a Fountain of Youth. A beautiful well from which we all can drink and which will make us look beautiful. Really... there is such a thing! God blessed us all with our very own Fountain of Youth. And it's inside all of us... the Fountain of Youth is our SOUL.
Soul is the very essence of our being. The Soul is our deep deep well, where everything, all the secrets can be found, even the secret of beauty!
Ever wondered how certain people start looking more and more attractive as they grow older, how they start having a peculiar glow and a certain light in their eyes?! They drink from their Fountain of Youth, that's why.
Whether one is blessed by God with a beautiful face or not... everyone has an equal opportunity at filling up their Fountain of Youth and drinking from it every single day. God has blessed us all that way.

Here's the secret - You can fill up your own Fountain of Youth with either good, holy water or with dirty poisonous water.
Every kind word, every kind thought, every prayer for humanity, every good deed, even the smiles and greetings that you return, every goodness in you... it fills up your fountain with God's blessed water.
And the hatred, jealousy, bitterness, anger and such things poison your fountain.

It is important that we expel the bad thoughts as soon as we get them, release them, set them free like birds from a cage... if we don't want our fountain of youth to be poisoned. I know it's not easy, because we are all humans. But with time, the mind and heart learn to do it.

What our Soul drinks inside is what will reflect on the outside. When the Soul is drunk on goodness, no amount of flesh and bones can stop it's light from shining through for everyone else to see. It just gets and feels better and better with age. This is the Fountain of Youth.

Be thankful to God for his kindness towards you, have faith in him, trust the Supreme being for He has blessed all of us in different ways. Fill up your Fountain of Youth with goodness and let your beauty shine through.

Dazzle... we all were meant to :)

Angels

Angels... Guardian Angels, Protectors.
Lately I've come to believe or rather sense my Angel strongly. I don't know why or how but something new has begun. I can feel it. And amazingly I am not scared. Infact, I am intrigued, my interests piqued, my senses wanting more and my mind and heart trying to understand the deep meaning of it all.

Silence and darkness, now, bring with them a strange awareness and warmth. I feel safe in them now, whereas earlier I tried to avoid them as best as I could.

My mind isn't playing tricks on me, I'm sure. There are things in this world beyond human comprehension. Things that our eyes can't see, our ears can't hear. But our senses can sense them, sometimes. Then those who want to know more tweak their senses to tune into this new other-worldly frequency.

I don't want to talk about it more...because I want to know more. The World is a classroom for every eager, ready to learn student. It is said that the Master appears when the student is ready... am I? I am.