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Showing posts from October, 2015

Shakti - the eternal feminine - 2

The mother Durga had made a proclamation in Durga Saptashati. She said to the gods, " Ittham yada yada vadha danavottha bhavishwati tada tadarvatiraham kariswami arisamsayam " - Whenever and wherever evil forces raise their heads and create obstacles, then and there I appear and destroy them. This is similar to the famous and oft repeated verses in Gita - "yada yada hi dharmasya..." Durga is found as reference in many ancient texts and elsewhere around the world. In Cyprus there was an ancient goddess names Virgo whose image depicted a female riding a lion and killing a demon. It is believed that Egyptian goddesses like Isis have their origin in the worship of eternal feminine. The same goes with Astarte or Ishtar who was the goddess of fertility and was worshiped but almost all ancient races like Assyrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians and had lion as one of the symbols. Scholars argue that the worship of the goddess arose from worshiping mother earth for a bountiful

What it takes to become developed

The social diseases that are prevalent in India, the conflicts, the wrong doings, the corruption among Government officials, the collusion of mafias with ruling class, the flagrant violation of the laws by the high and mighty, the abysmal lack of concern for others and selfishness, bending of rules, adopting shortcuts in every sphere, right from road traffic to governance, the shortsightedness of leaders, the apathy towards fellow beings, to name a few, lead us one to question the very basis of the theory of development. Are we really developing as a nation or are we going backwards? The entire debate around development revolves round economic development and progress made on the social developments - the human development in terms of access to healthcare, education and utilities. However when we look into a country on the path of development, it seems that the human development and economic development are but secondary. The first and foremost in this respect is development in t