IIT Bombay Mech Engg batch of 1968 may remember Jayram Daya as being a sensitive, good-natured classmate from Hostel 2, an artist, and a citizen of South Africa. Since those student days, Jayram has successfully established a business in South Africa, handed the business over to his two sons, and is now happily pursuing higher interests in the next stage of life. He is in Sanyaas Ashram, but also, in his own words: I’m an engineer, an entrepreneur, a storyteller, a poet, an author, a painter, a photographer, a blogger, a philosopher, and a visionary.
Karma operates at the deepest level of our being. Therefore its working cannot be grasped without rigorous introspection and true empathy with another person’s condition. Nonetheless, all of us do pick up hints now and then, from ancient stories and from the life around us.
A famous story in the Bible has Cain asking God, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’
Cain was denying any responsibility for the well-being of his younger bother Abel and – by implication – for the well-being of other human beings. In fact the jealous Cain had killed Abel prior to this exchange with God, and therefore that question was also Cain’s attempt to cover up his horrendous crime. The story goes that, thereafter, Cain lived the life of a restless wanderer.
[This post outlines a current trend which we feel should be watched. To keep it from becoming too long to hold the reader’s interest, we have not included the factual evidence which proves the trend. For the interested reader, we have provided brief allusions to evidence available on the internet. Readers are welcome to also request us for more specific explanations.]
The United States of America (US) rates itself as ‘an exceptional and indispensable nation’. Statements made by US presidents from Ronald Reagan onwards – easily searchable on the web – make this attitude clear to anyone who can put two and two together and get the right answer. During his time on the world stage, Barack Obama said: ‘I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being’. His method was to speak with so much panache that people would not notice the inherent absurdity.
seeker-of-root-causes 