The Art of Loving

I was reading a book called, “The Art of Loving” by Eric Fromm written during 1956. The book consists of wide range of ideas, not about “how to love” but “what love is”. It makes us think that love can be an art.

It is apparent that definitions of love vary based on people attitudes, experiences and believes. In addition, what love is, to me, may not be the same, for another person. We all are philosophers, at some point in life. In particular, when we talk on “world perspectives” for example, love, life, faith, religion and politics. Therefore, to generalize about love and on love, is to make an understatement about world perspectives.

In the final chapters of the book, Fromm articulates and answers if love is an art or not. He suggests that love is an art just like any other art, music, poetry, painting, carpentry and engineering. In every art, there are key elements. Three key elements which are necessary ingredients for love: Discipline, Concentration and Patience.

Generally, Sex plays a vital role in love. Fromm argues on Freud theory of “sexual pleasure” on love and rather suggests, “Sexual happiness” which is based on penetrating ‘hearts and minds’ of partner and ‘touching’ him/her in much, deeper sense. Maybe he meant ‘some kind of karmic connection’ is necessary to be happy and satisfied in love.

Many a great philosophers, poets and scientist have an opinion on love. My view is no different from Fromm’s perspective on love. He has clearly shown in his book that love is an art. There are several objects of love such as brotherly love, motherly love, erotic love, self –love, and love of God. Each of these love are different in one ways or another and these grow in time and space, as we do.
After reading a book, I have acquired a great deal of knowledge on love. However, love without practice and experience is not love. I have experienced many objects of love but still unsatisfied with the hunger for love. In a world where, we are consumers of food, drinks, a big bottle, a big breast; a big house, awesome car and great job. In more poetic sense, it seems that Love is not something for consumption.

Love is omnipresent and our appetite will always be unfulfilled for love. It is better for us because, without love, earth will not rotate, seasons will not change, birds will not sing and life will not exit.

As Eckhart has said, “If you love yourself, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as you love another person less that you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself, but if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one person & that person is both God and man. Thus he is great & righteous person who, loving himself, loves all others equally.” I love you, all!

Hard Truth

Death of former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, popularly known as Girijababu, has shocked the nation. Death is a bitter reality that no power, religion, scientific endeavour or pill can prevent. It is a harsh and fundamental truth that each one of us must face it someday.

I remember a piece of wisdom my grandfather passed on to me before he died. He told me to recite this mantra daily: “I am going to die someday. But I am not sad about it today. If I am sad today of dying someday, then how am I supposed to live and do something today?”

I don’t know if this mantra really works. I suppose only a few of my learned readers may accept this philosophical convention. But it really does inspire and encourage me to live life to the fullest without being worried about death.

One invariable fact about life is that it will come to an end. But, it is not the destination that counts, rather the process by which one reaches the destination. If one fully lives their life on a day-to-day basis, one is bound to live a happier, healthier life. Despite this knowledge, many fear death. Imagine a scenario where somebody is standing in front of you, pointing a revolver towards your face. In such a scenario, one is bound to fear death. But fearing death for no present reason is not wise.

Before going any further on death, one has to understand the magnitude of fear, including the pain and suffering that the fear of death can cause. After reading several religious scriptures, I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of interesting ideas about death. For example, in the Bible, the ‘coming back’ of Jesus Christ is mentioned. Similarly, some Muslim scholars believe in the ‘coming back’ of the Prophet Mohammad. Hindus also believe in the concept of chaurasi janma. My childish mind doubts this though, without any proper reason to give. I believe that, take it or leave it, everyone has to die one day, and that is the only truth of this so-called, ‘human life’.

Life is not like a game of cricket where in one match if you are clean bold, you can come up fresh in the very next match. To me, life is about living in the present moment and feeling happy and thankful for being alive. It is about cherishing the memories of the past, creating new ideas and innovations in the present, learning from peers, and loving everything that has been placed front of us.

Sadly, our Girijababu is no longer with us, but his legacy and contributions to Nepali politics and the country will always be remembered forever.


Published: The Kathmandu Post
Post Platform

Source: eKantipur

My name is Khan

We all have choices and differences. The types of clothes we wear; the taste of different kinds of food and the different variety of movies that we watch. See, there is ‘differences’ of taste it also seems that there is ‘difference’ in how we perceive things.

Recently, I came across the movie named, “My name is Khan”. The movie itself has lot of ideas and message for the general people. However, the core idea suggests not all Muslims in World should be perceived as a terrorist. In general, it is very obvious that, neither any religious fate nor any spiritual dogma is above humanity.

From our ancestral times, we humans have divided ourselves into many religious faith and ethnicity. We also have divided the world as East, West, North and South. These divisions have side affect. After post 9/11 many of those people who has faith in ‘Islam’ has been seen as a possible terrorist in West. There are hundreds and thousands of sad stories and articles solely written for that particular event. The world is now divided into AC (After Christ), BC (Before Christ) and before or after 9/11.

It is shocking, isn’t it? When I visualize my own past memory by pressing the ‘back’ button, I am in 2001 AD. Then, I remembered this scary event, when I was on my ways to school in a bus and one of the nearby passenger said, “Twin tower collapsed in America”. And another man was gossiping and saying, “Osama bin laden seems to be bigger and larger than America, itself.”
As said in the movie, “In this world, there are two kinds of people: good and bad”. The good people do well but the bad people are the ones who use ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ to ‘make a match out of nothing’.

But after 9/11, the way, people in West perceived “Islam” in general was not good, as suggested in the movie. Moreover, one friend of mine, from America was suggesting, “Forget Islam, if they see black or brown looking face, the white folks think these people are all Muslims.” Wonder why?

Many of us worry about our past or future but the life itself is dramatically changing with the major events.(for example 9/11, Haiti Disaster etc) It is very obvious that, no religion can give us the ‘pills’ to survive the death.

Neither any scientific advancement can inject the ‘death pills’ either. The ultimate truth lies on how we behave to fellow human beings. The common purpose of human existence should never be judged by what kind of religious practices, they preach or what kind of color of the skin, they possess or which place they come from, east, west, north and south but on very simple phenomenon of who they really are and how they behave in society or community, in general.

One wise man once said, “Always remember, humanity is above any religion, sect, country or faith.”

Beauty and Light

May, you live
Full day of your life
May, you find
Beauty
In your prince
Or princess eyes

My love for you
Is not bodily
Materialistic
Or, full of lies

As sun will shine
In heavenly sky
I will always
Kiss my light
Either in days
Or nights
Up above
Twinkling stars
Singing songs of
'Beauty & light'

Those
Who are, close
To me
Will always be
With me

My voices are
Of ocean's wave

My happiness
Comes with
The music
Of natural songs

I am no one
In the land of
"Silence"

Those who speak
Are not speaking
Truth, my life
Those who seek to speak
May, just be hiding
In dark light

May, you live
Full day of your life
Kisses
And goodbyes

Incompetent PM

Going by your special editorial, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told the worried business community that he was ‘helpless’, apparently to nab and take swift action against criminal elements (“Law and disorder,” March 3, Page 1). Such a statement is unbecoming of the head of the government and suggests that the prime minister is undeserving of the post.

Santosh Kalwar

Ratnanagar 4, Tandi

Chitwan


Published: The Kathmandu Post
Letters to the Editor

Time to act

After reading several articles on the disputed concept of 2012, the end of the world, and watching hundreds of videos on You Tube, I finally decided to write about it.

Many contemporary scientists and astrologers have written books on 2012, and they have different opinions and ideas regarding it. Some believe that the world will come to an end in the year 2012 because of a mysterious supernova, natural disasters and polar shift while others discard it.

As there are always two sides of the coin, I believe that we should listen to different opinions coming from different sides and experts.

The idea of ‘polar shift’ was first suggested by Albert Einstein in 1955. Recent studies have suggested that ‘polar shift’ has happened in the past, and is likely to occur in coming days. If that happens, the entire earth will change its position with rocking earthquakes and rising tsunami flood and natural catastrophe. On a similar account, many astronomers have predicted that, the earth will be in exact alignment to the sun and the centre of the Milky Way galaxy in Dec. 21, 2012. They say that such event called as ‘galactic alignment’ occurs only once in every 25,800 years. No one can exactly predict the effect of such alignment on earth. But they believe that it will be disastrous. Similarly, many astronomers believe on ‘Mayan Calendar’ which predicts the end of time coming during the same date.

The world has evolved from Stone Age to agricultural, and has gradually moved towards industrial age and now it has reached to the technological. Despite the technological advancements we have, we still do not have a control over nature.

None of the above discussed predictions can be asserted as true or false. However, it would not be wrong to state that the world is currently facing several problems — both natural and human induced — which may be suggesting that ‘something huge’ is coming on our ways. Take for example, Haiti earthquake disaster, which killed almost 300,000 people. There is another recent incident of Chile, where around 700 people were killed by earthquake, tsunami and floods. Similarly, people in the Western Europe are reportedly facing a tough time with winter and snow. So, where is all this leading to?

Million dollar question to ask is: What are we doing? Is there nothing that we can do to prevent it from coming? The world leaders are after their own national agendas and interests. Sadly enough, they could not come together to the conclusion in the recently concluded Copenhagen conference on climate change. It seems that the money matters to us more than human lives and the earth. If the same pattern continues where climate change issues are ignored, mass killings are rampant, and religious and racial wars are raged, the earth will definitely be (or already is) in danger, as the proponents of 2012 concept believe and tell us.


Published: The Kathmandu Post
Post Platform

Source: ekantipur

She walks in beauty

She walks in beauty

The way she walks, like a rain dear in the night
Of smiling cloud up above the Finnish Sky
Gentleness surrounds with her movement
Dwindling across the waves in an ocean
Peaceful serenity around
The smile ever wins, the days which glows
A beautiful mind in peace shows
Without any sorrows
A heart full of love
So innocent and shyness all around
She walks in beauty
Like a rain dear
Down below the heart of Finnish Sky

My Country Awake

Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.


by Rabindranath Tagore