Listen Man, Please.

Listening is a voluntary action of us. We listen consciously and unconsciously. Most of the time we listen unconsciously to many things: gossips, opinions, comments, criticisms and even songs.

Unlike any activity we do we listen more. Yet this activity goes unnoticed. Mother Nature has equipped us with this faculty of listening by birth. Before we learn to talk we listen. Even a deaf person can listen, and so is a blind person. Listening is not hearing nor seeing. It is a faculty that hovers within us beyond the influence of our senses.

So listen. No other sense in man or in animal works like listening. Yet man does not know how to tame and domesticate this all-powerful faculty for his benefits. No faculty in man does change its intensity of function as listening does. That is why we could hear murmurs and even a rustle of a leaf, if need be.

Man is addicted to listening. The more you listen to anything the more you get addicted to it.

Listening is tricky in its nature. It plays havoc in some triggering mental frustration. It keeps you close to the God in you if it is properly channelized. It can pave the way for you to become a millionaire. It can also ruin you in no time. Mind you, this very faculty resides in you. Not outside of you.

In life you and me listen to a lot of things. From the chirping of birds to the murmur of crickets in the night. Almost everything falls into our faculty of listening. A wide range of sounds, images, smells, feelings, textures, and even ripples in the air do fall upon our listening faculty. But we seldom notice them unless we want to.

No man can suppress this faculty. But man can control it. It needs a lot of grit to make this faculty obey us. If you can make it obey you, you can even listen to your mind too.

The very world in which we live today would not have been possible without exercising this faculty by men. Early man invented fire by listening to his need for warmth. Every real things aroud us are the results of listening to this faculty by men of different kind. Scientists do this more. Artists do this. Writers do this. Musicians do this. Kings did this. all do this in one way or the other to satisfy some needs of his. So listen to your own faculty of listening. Listen to your mind and to the world outside.

I seldom listen. But I listen to myself. I still have to learn to listen more. Listening yourself makes you free as birds. It can keep diseases away, it can keep you young forever, it can make you bold, it can make you patient and it can change your lifestyle overnight.

Listening is the simplest work one can do any time. The yields are highly rewarding. You need to get trained to listen to you and others. Listening faculty itself is the best trainer for you.
All you need is to sit quietly and concentrate on the thought pattern of your mind. You are listening.

Culture A Rose

Often I wonder whether I have 'culture'. If I do have it, what it is like? Can I touch it?
Can I feel it? Can I express it? Or can I explain it?

A simple search for the term 'culture' in Google catapults you into a world of utter confusion. Google throws before you thousands of pages that do mention the word 'culture'. It is unlikely for one to go through all those pages in his life time. When it is so, the very thing 'culture' can be definitely confusing.

Kudos to the one who invented the word culture. Hats off to those who tried to define the word culture. A Nobel Prize for the one who explained it in a sentence without loosing its complete meaning.

Culture is such a word. It demands the entrepreneurship of men who have enough culture to redefine it.

Ask me about it. Suddenly I realize how helpless I am to convince you about it. How handicapped I am to describe it. I go dumbfounded about it.

Culture is something that is either elusive like a fish or volatile like spirit. Explaining it is still next to the impossible. I am sure that is the hallmark of culture as it is. No man ever lived on earth manifested his culture in its totality. But many like me and you brag about it. That is what our culture is.

When you are helpless you naturally seek the support of someone or something. All did seek the help of other known words to define this single word 'culture'. Educationists attributed its identity to civilization. Politicians attributed its identity to the party's agenda. Botanists attributed its identity to tissue culture. Each one attributed its identity to his area of activity.

Why this very word 'culture' remain so mystic in its very nature? Why does culture manifest only at times in one's life so that every one could understand it? Does it have anything to do
with Man who can walk on two legs, keep a smile on his lips, foster love in his heart and show compassion to others like him? does it influence the Man when he is annoyed, irritated or sad? Does it take over the Man when he is selfish and self-centered? does it manifest its self when the Man turns envious of others?

I am sure,culture is something that is directly related to your mind and your feelings. It is one thing that controls your Id, Ego and Super Ego. It turns itself into an 'angel' if you need it that way. It remains as a 'devil' if you let it rule you. Does culture have a split-personality? it is the only lasting entity in a Man's life that decides what He is and what He would be till his death.

Culture is permissive, compromising and accommodating. It is radical, revolutionistic and demanding at the same time. There is no state of 'in-between' for it.

To me 'culture' is a rose. At least I can deem it so with all my humility. The fragrance of it is everywhere. But mind you, don't handle it carelessly. You get hurt with its thrones!

So what makes your culture is neither the rose flower or the thrones around it. It is the fragrance of it.

Enjoy the fragrance of it as much as you can. You will never get fed up with the smell of a rose. You need not define how a rose flower smells. The very word rose itself smells rose.
Culture is a rose. It either makes you or breaks you.

Be A Baby Again!

"Good communication is stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after."

How true! These are the words that arrested me just now. These are not my words. It is of one Anne Morrow Lindbergh. But the words define not what communication is. It defines what communication be like. Good communication should linger in you. Imagine drinking a good cup of black coffee . Enjoy every sip of it. It keeps you awake late night. That is how good black coffee works for late-night-enthusiasts.

Without communication it is like living in a dark cave. With over communication it is like sleeping in a battle field.

It took years for me to learn what good communication is. I am still learning it. I still have to master the techniques of communicating effectively. I am watching the baby.

It takes a baby some time to call you with your first name. Imagine your young baby calls you with your first name all on a sudden. You get a kick! You love it! You feel happy that your baby can call you your first name. and you will reward him with a sweet kiss. That is how communication works. That is how communication should work.

The baby has loaded its love in the word when it pronounced your first name! That is why you got happy. That is the basis of good communication. Charge the messages with emotions. Make it seep into the bottom of one's heart. Let it remain there, for ever.

As the baby in you grows into manhood, he looses his inborn art of communication.There is no feelings in any messages you get from him. Where does that baby's feelings go? If he calls now you in your name, you feel annoyed. what happened to those sweet feelings? such is the sort of communication you get now from your surroundings. such is the messages you receive from newspapers, books, TV or radio. Plenty of "drama" spoils the communication today. Plenty of gimmicks erode the communication today. In communication you can't go back to your baby-state.

The baby in you is dead. And you never could communicate to the other baby in someone. Everyone around you are same as you. Communication sinks. Only dramas float. Messages get dilapidated. Only dust remains. what happens? Your over-communicated brain does not allow you to talk like a baby as you did years back. There is no room in the brain for "feelings". Feelings are for the heart. Communication is mixing heart with brain.

You become a battery now; with two poles. The positive and the negative. You have no emotions left in your heart to complete the circuit with the battery. Your communication seldom gets 'sweet-wrapped' when your brain rules you.

If you put heart into brain, the circuit works and you get the pleasant shock. To connect to your communication battery you need to be a baby again. You need to put your feelings behind each word you say. You need to lift the meanings with vehamence to get your messages across. that is how communication works like. Can you be a baby again to talk like a baby?

Should we read or write?

Since Man's invention of letters, man learned to read also. Since then the Sun rose and set uncountable times. Man still reads. And some do write also. Both use the same letters and words.

The papyrus have given way to newsprint and now to the digital medium. Still the words remain the same! Letters look the same! Even the basic meaning remain the same! Is that a wonder?

Since the invention of letters, the waters in the Euphretes and the Tigris ran non-stop. The river Nile still runs caressing its banks. So is the life we live. But do we live the life of the Sumerians who invented the alphabets? Definitely not. Life has changed a lot. It has changed the face of this planet. But not the planet of words.

Why the words look the same despite the changes through centuries? Why their meanings look the same all through the ages? Why most of the men remain as readers than as the few writers?

Sir Francis Bacon said:"Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man." Very true, for the Man of his times. Not for the Man of today. Today man reads. Seldom he writes. If some does, he copies what others did in the past. Nothing new. Life in the planet of letters still remain pre-historic.

There is no poetry in poems. There is no drama in drama. There is no story in fiction. There is nothing novel in novel. There is no Life in words of today!

Is it the readers who create writers? Or is it the writers who create readers? Is both reciprocal? Then how come the seed first and the tree later?

Confusion rules the thinking faculty of men today. There is no perfect answer to anything in the world. Even Science fails before getting itself established. But Life seldom fails. Neither words. Not meanings either.

Confusion rules the very life of ours today. We tend to think complex. We have no time for the finer and simpler things in life. We do not have time for simple words and their pregnant meanings.

Did I say 'pregnant meanings'? Word is dynamic in its message. Its message is its meaning. As the Life changes, meanings also do change within the boundaries of a word. That is culture.

As men get confused they seek words for solace. They start reading. Some start to write to seek a vent for their bottled up emotions. Both use words. But not a word with new life! All they read or write are words that look like the eyes of a dead fish.

Still all want to read. Even writers do read. That is why we buy books and newspapers. We sell old books and newspapers as junk. Do we sell old words as junk?
We buy books, subscribe newspapers and listen to media to see the words we knew. We do all this to repeat the junk sales. We help them create money by selling dead words.

Do we 'read' for ourselves? Do we 'write' for our own satisfaction? Do we 'live' for ourselves?

It is high time that we should stop reading. It is high time that we should stop looking for 'new life' in old words. Look at our kids. They have stopped 'reading' before they knew what Life is. They do not know how many alphabets are there in their own mother tongue.

Are we reading again?