by Naresh Jotwani
The following lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet constitute the most famous soliloquy in English literature:
Continue reading TWO PRINCESTo be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
by Naresh Jotwani
POWER is a word much in use today: as in powerful, powerless, power-hungry, power line, power station, power electronics, power politics, purchasing power … and more. After a quick, broad look at this theme, this post will focus on the two main variants of power: HARD POWER and SOFT POWER.
Continue reading POWER: HARD & SOFTby Naresh Jotwani
Finance, happiness and their interplay are important topics. The world is highly financialized, and filled with unhappiness. Unhappiness often erupts in violent crime and also larger conflicts. A fresh look at these two is not out of place.
Continue reading Finance & Happinessby Naresh Jotwani
Simple people go about their lives in simple ways – farming, fishing, carpentry, baking … whatever. Sometimes they are happy, sometimes sad; sometimes they celebrate, sometimes quarrel. Not being ‘sophisticated’, they do not say that they are ‘pursuing their self-interest’. They don’t need that kind of verbiage – because they are simply living.
Billions of people have lived their lives in this manner over millennia. One prays that, for millennia more, simple people will continue living their lives in simple ways.
Continue reading THWARTED INTELLIGENCE DISORDERby Naresh Jotwani
An earlier blog post (here) argued that the ideology of ‘capitalism’ is no more than a cover for insatiable greed. The present post describes the media psy-ops which ‘capitalist rulers’ carry out 24×7 upon the host society. This post is based on the goings-on within ‘the sole superpower’, but clearly similar tactics are also seen elsewhere — because people are people, and societies are societies.
Continue reading MEGAPHONES AS POLICYby Naresh Jotwani
Information age, AI, virtual reality, global hegemony, tariffs, space war, cyber war — many such heavy words are being bandied about 24×7. What is one to make of it all? How does one chart one’s path through the bewildering recent outpouring of geopolitics and technology?
This post argues that the answer is ‘as old as the hills‘. A person’s inner voice, nurtured and clarified through persistent individual effort, is still the most reliable guide — just as it has been over millennia.
Continue reading Separating Grain from Chaffby Naresh Jotwani
The dominant feature of the current version of ‘capitalism’ is limitless greed (see the post here). From intellectual curiosity, and of course also in one’s interest, one needs to study the ‘macro-behaviour’ of this beast in an objective, dispassionate manner. This post is such an attempted study.
Continue reading STUDYING THE BEASTby Naresh Jotwani
Today the world has literally ‘lost it’ over the word capitalism.
While that may seem to be an overstatement, it can be justified quite easily. Only some clear thinking is needed, founded on words which – unlike capitalism – are rooted in reality.
Continue reading CAPITALISM: A STRANGE WORDby Naresh Jotwani
A couple of days ago, Keshav Vaze wrote a comment, which we posted here. This post is a follow up on the last part of Keshav’s comment. The post is also, in essence, a speculation on why someone may fail to consider Dharma in his actions.
Quoted below is the last paragraph in Keshav’s comment, on which this post takes a different view:
Unless the society accepts the tenets that ‘Good is good in itself. There is no one sitting in judgement. There is no reward nor punishment: neither in this birth nor in the next birth’, the society will land into this problem.
Co-editor R. Srinivasan (‘Srini’) has also contributed greatly to this post, through discussions held over the phone.
Continue reading THE POISON OF HUBRIS[The following two thought-provoking comments were made on our previous post by Keshav Vaze and Jayram Daya. The editors felt that these comments should be shared with the wider reader group.]
1. Comment by Keshav Vaze
One line from the post A Few Points On Religion caught my attention in a striking manner:
The established ‘religious institutions’ of Gujarat did not fulfill the simple requirements of basic humanity; a ‘foreign religion’ did.
Naturally one asks, ‘WHY?’
Let me put forth the string of thoughts as an answer to this question. Perhaps we can pin it down to one of the tenets of Hinduism: the idea of rebirth, reincarnation, पुनर्जन्म.
A long time ago, I had read an article in Marathi on the topic of पुनर्जन्म. I am not sure, but I think it was attributed to Osho. The gist of the article was:
Long long ago there was a civilization, a precursor to Hindu. They faced a dilemma: Teachings of the Shastras suggested that as part of Divine Justice, good deeds fetch rewards, and bad deeds fetch punishment. The reality was palpably opposite. Bad men were flourishing and good men were suffering. Gyanis thought over it. If this continued, and it seemed clear that it would, it would be impossible to persuade people to do good things. Then they played a masterstroke.
They said: ‘Yes, we are witnessing an inversion of the Shastras. But it appears so only during this birth. Your good deeds in this birth will be rewarded in the next birth; and you will be punished in your next birth for all your bad deeds in this birth.’
As expected, this was bought by the public and the good men continued to be good. Happy ending!
What the article did not say was: There is a corollary, or call it a side effect.
That logic made it somewhat easy to ignore the call of the conscience to help the needy. The call was suppressed by the logic that the suffering person must have done something bad in his previous birth, and is being punished for the same in this birth. I should not act against ‘Divine Justice’ by mitigating his suffering.
It also kept the sufferers quiet: Convinced that the suffering is ‘God given’, a consequence of the sins committed by them during their previous birth, they were reluctant to fight against the injustice and preferred to endure the suffering so that they will be rewarded in the next birth.
Unless the society accepts the tenets that ‘Good is good in itself. There is no one sitting in judgement. There is no reward nor punishment: neither in this birth nor in the next birth‘, the society will land into this problem.
2. Comment by Jayram Daya
Your article draws a clear distinction between dharma as an essential principle that sustains life and order and religion as a historical, institutional, and social construct. The two should not be considered synonyms. Dharma is more than just a set of beliefs or a membership identity; it is about the nature of existence, right behavior, accountability, and the order that supports both the individual and society.
However, the Advaitic view holds that the ultimate truth cannot be limited to a single religion, prophet, text or institution. Different traditions might be viewed as culturally conditioned representations of humanity’s search for a single ultimate reality. The true test of any spiritual path should not be its size, power or claims of exclusivity, but rather whether it fosters compassion, humility, self-awareness, and genuine concern for the suffering of others.
