Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts

Monday, April 12, 2010

Possibly "thank you" in Portuguese !

Possibly "thank you" in Portuguese !

Recently, I traveled on my first scientific conference to Porto, Portugal. Porto is second largest city in the country after capital-Lisbon. The experience of the journey was horrific. Can you imagine falling in love with a city and the people, although it was only for just four days?

I met many pretty ladies in the conference in Porto and also many lonesome men like me-maybe to go wild in the romantic rainy climate of the Porto.

One of the pretty ladies said, “Do you know my husband ….” After that I didn’t wanted to store any piece information from a beautiful lady.

I wonder why these good looking Portuguese girls are “missing” their husband or boy friend and I have to handle the situation or listen to their sad stories. Poor Me! However, maybe I am born to solve the problem on love, truth and relationships.

I could not stand giving my piece of so called “wise advice” on that very lady and ended up saying, “You know, those who are close to heart are never missed.” Finally, she laughed and said, “Obrigado”, Thanks God, what does that word means?

After listening too many of the boring lectures and presentations by so called, “scientists”, I got frustrated and decided to visit some of the places such as harbor, port wine sellers and smell the cool breeze coming from Antarctic Ocean near the fort beach.

The smell was so beautiful and romantic. I talked with Portuguese couples. They hardly were very good at speaking English and I myself do not claim to be very good as well. Nevertheless with my curiosity, I asked with them, “How long you guys have been together?” the girl replied, “it has been seven years” Smilingly, I cherished their togetherness and felt “proud” of such Portuguese couple.

Many of the couples in recent days have trouble being together. I decided to taste some of the famous port wine and think on the reasons behind “not being together”. Under the smell of cool breeze near the harbor, with my eyes closed and beautiful romantic singers singing “tunes of Porto”, I invented something great that Einstein would have been proud of – The trouble is not with the couples but with the ever changing situation of globalized world and the economy.

Recession has hit in each and every corners of the globe. With less money, how can someone will have so called, “honey?”

My conversation with the Portuguese couple didn’t last long. I shared the same idea, wished them “good luck” for their future in their relationship and shared smiled in Portuguese way. They looked very happy with my piece of wisdom that I shared with them, In return they said, “Obrigado” to me.

Again, I have to come back to the conference arena. I started to wonder why these boring conferences are held. Then I realized maybe it is to “network and mingle” with like minded peoples. However, there were hardly anyone who was talking “romance and love” in the scientific conference and my journey was completely different that ordinary scientists or maybe I should have gone to 'romantic scientific conferences' rather than that I went.

Apparently, I saw another single mom, who was from Porto and she started to share her feelings of relationships with me. She said, “Do you know that love does not last forever, I was married with a professor for twenty five years but our relationship didn’t work out.” I wonder why?

I was so intelligent with my words that I disguised my appearance –as if I was feeling sad and said to her, “I am so sorry for your unsuccessful romantic life, maybe whatever we do is a based on our karma” The Hindu philosophical wisdom didn’t impressed her so I decided to give the Christian faith unto her. “Do not worry, you will find someone better, someday” Now, she seemed more satisfied with the response. More than ninety percent of population is Roman Catholic, I guess!

After couple of hours of wise talk, she finally got satisfied with the wisdom we shared.
The final day was approaching and the conference was coming to an end. There were more problems that could have been seen, heard or shared but ‘time is money’. Insofar, I wanted to hear more and help these people more but every journey has an end.

Every time I talked with these couples and shared my piece of wisdom with them, they said, “obrigado”. My lack of Portuguese was very unsatisfactory, I could not understand the meaning behind the word and I assumed that it won’t mean anything bad about me or about my color of skin or about my piece of wisdom.

I didn’t even had computer to “Google translate” the word. Therefore, my journey came to an end when I safely landed to Helsinki but the cold breeze smelled so frustrating and melancholy that I started to feel the same.

In conclusion, the journey of love of any place, or any experience with new people, country or conference is always like “the beginning of an end or maybe end of the beginning” By the way, what do you think, “Obrigado” would have meant? Possibly, “thank you” in Portuguese!

Monday, October 15, 2007

War, Games and Spirituality

War and games have been part of life since time immemorial. They are both tendencies that have impacted human life and society, sometimes favorably and sometimes adversely. The Mahabharata war began with a game but what came out of it was wisdom of Gita. World has seen lessons after World War II, when tolerance, pluralism and secularism gained prominence. But when war became a game, we have failed to learn a lesson. For the mighty and powerful, war is just a game, as has happened in Vietnam and Iraq. Pakistan and India have fought many wars and the same is true of the Middle East. In spite of so many ethnic conflicts in central Africa, Congo, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and now Sudan, no lesson has been learnt. There is a thin line between game and war. While the East has chosen the concept of seeing life as a game, in the Middle East, it is jehad. One thing that seems to be common between war and game is that, in both, you need to be insensitive towards the other. If you are sensitive towards others' feelings, you can't defeat the other. That is why the concept of Life is a game in-sensitizes you to the pains and the pleasures of life. Today, when children play video games, Internet, watch violent cartoons, they get in-sensitized. These games have turned into real life situations, leading to classroom violence. The last decade has seen unprecedented instances of violence in schools. Dropout rates in schools in Washington DC are an alarming 50 per cent and there is an increase in gang violence amongst the adolescents the world over. The intellectuals of today have to devise ways to bring back sensitivity and sensibility in the younger generation, without which there will be neither safety nor security on this planet. Fear of dominance of one community over the other, one nation over the other, have caused nations and communities to amass weapons. Amassing wealth and weapons has become a game. On many occasions, caste conflicts and cash conflicts are all subsidiaries of the arms race. Many think that spirituality makes men realize the ultimate. Spirituality is definitely an antidote to war. It helps to prevent the game from turning into a war and war turning into a game. Spirituality, people often think, is just a practice; it is an attitude as well. A practice is always bound by time but an attitude gets woven into that time. As practice, it is limited to occasions, to time and has time-bound effects. It is easy to adopt spirituality as a practice but takes courage, maturity and understanding to build it as an attitude. It is attitude and intention that matters more than action. The Americans apologized for mistaken notion when they bombed civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. When the Israelis pounded Lebanon or when Sri Lankan forces bombed Tamil Tigers' schools and hospitals, all they said was sorry, it was not our intention; it was a mistaken identity. Here, war has become a game. Today, many around the globe say spirituality is the answer. Will humaneness in spirituality put an end to war? Will it make you submissive and docile? Will it take away the joy and fun in aggression? Will it make you an escapist? This stream of questions smolders with no answers to put them off. In fact, it should not be. An answer can only be used once, but the path created by these vital questions can be trodden many times to an open-ended human evolution.