NARA'S NOTEPAD: November 2016

NARA'S NOTEPAD

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NARA'S NOTEPAD

VOLUME 12

DECEMBER 2016

NUMBER 12

TABOOS ARE THE ENEMIES OF

UNDERSTANDING

SPONSOR

NARA’S NOTEPAD

THANK

Prof. T. V. Chalam, Assoc. Dean, ANGRAU (Retd.),

Director, Sri Lakshmi Educational Institutions, Narsingraopet, Kurnool – 518 004; Ph. 9642657742

for sponsoring Sept. 2016 to Aug. 2017 issues.

“Touch” is a beautiful English word. It is used as a verb and also as a noun. Generally we touch a liquid – water, milk, and oil – to see whether it is hot or cold. The touch gives us the feeling of hotness or coldness. Touching with hand is a common practice. We do touch the forehead of a person to see whether he/she has fever. We shake hands with friends and newly introduced people as a mark of affection and friendship. The feeling of touch gives a sort of comfort. In fact, touching a pet animal is a common habit with all of us. The pets feel happy when they are touched and they too try to touch us with their body parts.

‘Touch me not’ is a plant known as Mimosa pudica. If we touch the leaf-lets, they fold and fade automatically. Of course you can touch either with your finger or any other object, the plant responds. Nowadays we have touch screens everywhere. The smart phones, tablet computers, electronic voting machines and automated teller machines (ATMs) are all operated through touch screens. A user can give input or control the information processing system through simple or multi-touch gestures by touching the screen with one or more fingers or a special stylus/pen. I use a stylus instead of my finger to operate my devices because it works like a pen with which I am attached for a very long time in my life.

Apart from the recent developments, ‘finger print’ is one of the oldest signatures used by human beings. Even now to register a land or property, the registrar office uses one’s finger print as the best identification mark. Also finger print is used as passwords in the latest smart phones and tablet computers. Even in Aadhar id. card accounts, our finger print is recorded and stored.

Visually impaired people read a text touching the raised symbols in the Braille book. They touch and read the text. It is one of the most useful things for the visually impaired people. So by touch alone one can learn things.

In sports, one should not touch the ball with hands in a foot ball game. Players touch each other and hug each other as a mark of appreciation. There are songs and books about ‘touch.’ At the same time one has to be very careful in touching others. If we touch a stranger accidentally, we have to say ‘sorry.’

I cannot forget the word ‘untouchables’ in Indian society. It was a social custom prevailed in our society for a very long time. A certain group of people were considered by another group as low caste and they were the untouchables. These untouchables cannot use the streets or wells of the upper caste people. It was unbearable. Many reformers tried to remove this social curse over time. Abolition of untouchability was one of the best policies adopted by the government itself, although still here and there this disease is there.

A caution for everyone finally is: ‘Do not touch a live electric wire.’

DESIRE

Many people are stuck in a particular position in life simply because they feel that making a change would cause some measure of discomfort. To avoid the discomfort they linger in the existing state of affairs even though that causes discomfort as well. The sayings "Better the devil I know than the devil I don't." and "Don't jump from the frying pan into the fire." Express this sentiment.

Note the system of expectation at work here. When discomfort or pain is expected, the force works to keep you from making any change, even when the pain is imagined and may never take place.

To have a better understanding of desire, see it on an ascending scale, like a giant thermometer. At the bottom of the scale is zero, and at the top, one hundred.

When your desire is weak, near the bottom of the scale, it is unlikely that anything will motivate you to activate your will and accomplish the object of that desire. When your desire is near the top of the scale nothing can keep you from success in attaining that desire. To enhance desire, go to level and visualize the positive end result of what you desire to happen.

JUST TO LAUGH...

Naughty kid: “Hello! Do you have a refrigerator?”

Man: “Yes, I have. Who’re you?”

Kid: “Is it running?”

Man: “Yes.”

Kid: “Get hold of it... otherwise it might run away.”

The man slams down the phone.

After a few minutes the phone bell rings again.

Naughty kid: ”Hello! Do you have a refrigerator?”

Man: (Angrily): “No, I don’t hve.”

Kid: “Didn’t I tell you to hold it?”

My grandson, aged four, was sitting on his grandfather’s lap when he felt his pacemaker through his shirt.

“Grandpa, what’s that?” he asked.

“That is my battery.”

Aghast, the boy said, “Grandpa, are you a robot?”

PRESENT IS PRESENT

Do you want to be happy in life? If so, then you better stop doing wrong things and become aware of these 10 ways to suffer in life. Avoid these and you’ll automatically be on the right track:

Mixing with negative people: It’s a guaranteed way to fail in life. No matter what you want to do, negative people will tell you it just won’t work. Soon, you will also become negative.

Not knowing what you want: Most people are unaware as to what they want in life. They want money but they are not happy even after they get it, because they do not understand true happiness.

Doubting your success: When you doubt your own success, you are bound to fail because your doubts will signal the cosmic forces that you are not very serious about your success, thus ringing in failure.

Take revenge: There are many people in this world who hurt you, belittle you, misbehave with you and you always look for an opportunity to take revenge on them. But even before you can take your revenge, people find new opportunities to hurt you again. If you continue to plot revenge, you lose precious time. It is you who is always the loser and not the people who hurt you.

Thinking negative: Thinking negative is akin to inviting the cosmic forces to make your life difficult.

Living in the past: The inability to forget the past, makes you miss out on the present. Remembering the past recreates those painful situations, making you suffer continuously.

Having no control over speech: Though you may be good, caring, helpful and truthful, you have no control over your tone, tenor and speech. Hence, people misunderstand you and don’t like you.

Inability to accept things easily: The inability to accept that life does not always work to plan is a flaw. This makes us struggle for a flawed sense of perfection, while being unable to make peace with what you have.

A gullible man: When anybody talks negative/ill about you or your dear ones, you get affected easily since you have no confidence in yourself and in them. This makes you depressed strains your relationship with others.

One can’t always be “right”: Irrespective of whether you are right or wrong, you try to impose your decision, viewpoint and perception on others. You refuse to budge and concede to other’s views. You enjoy getting into an argument and force people to agree with you.

- Sadguru Rameshji