Pondering

Time Is Money, Part Two: A Choice of Paradigms

2011-08-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

That time is money is not a natural phenomenon but a man made condition. I believe this because we can live perfectly well without it. All we need to do is to learn from people who live-off their natural surroundings. Even today in the modern and civilized age there are people who still live in jungles, deserts, by mangroves and marches, on mountains and all manner of natural surroundings and do not need money to live full and fulfilling lives. If anything money may be a luxury to them and is something that they can live without.

Aboriginal people can live life without money because Providence does not put a price tag on anything. They might have to walk some distance to fetch water daily for their living, whereas we have the convenience of piped water that we have to pay for. For energy, they have to go and collect wood, while all we do is to turn on a switch. Aboriginal people have to be very careful with their food so they do not waste it since it takes quite a bit effort to collect, hunt or grow it before processing it to something edible but for us in villages, cities and towns food is all around us even out of season or foreign foods. All we need is money to buy it. From these simple comparisons one can surmise that money is a conveyor of convenience, that it is a fruit of progress in the evolution of human civilization. If this is the case we should expect that the quality of civilized city life be much better than living as aboriginal people. Yet this may not be necessarily true. I believe the concept that time-is-money skews the quality of living in communities. It has created a pursuit for wealth that has turned money from a convenient form of barter to something very different.

Aboriginal folk and we national people live in two different paradigms. They live in a paradigm where there is no need for money and we, where money is a living and life essential. The effect that money has on time in one paradigm and the lack of it in the other has created two modes of living. The former has created the 'rat-race' and the other oblivious living. Pondering these two paradigms makes me wonder if the development of money is actually progress or otherwise.

Two striking differences appear when aboriginal communites are compared with cities. The most obvious is their size. Aboriginal communities are naturally smaller than cities. They are more akin to villages but may be even smaller than that category. Their constraints in population is simply ecology. So much land can only provide so much resources for so many people. If their community grows to a certain number, then a natural split in the community occurs and groups diverge for equitable distribution of resources. Whereas modern cities emerge by efficient provision of resources to its community mainly through the means of commerce. Thus the more efficient a city, the bigger its community. It is the advent of money that makes city living possible, because people can get paid for their effort and that wealth allows one to procure whatever ones needs or wants maybe. In an aboriginal society money can be a choice or even be irrelevant because it does not need to be used to procure basic needs which is free for all less effort. Aboriginal communities are based on cooperation of the entire population working as a team to collect all the necessary resources for everyone. This brings to mind the second striking difference between these two kinds of community. This difference is the dearth or complete lack of stratification in the aboriginal communities compared to the communities in the cities.

Stratification in a community are its hierarchies or classes. The 'rat-race' of modern living driven by time-is-money creates classes and caste, rich and poor and the phenomenon of poverty. How does time-is-money create all these conditions? To understand that let us understand simplistically how an aboriginal society works. Aboriginal societies are based on cooperative living. All able members of the society work together to gather resources. Men and women have their distinctive chores and all of them work together. This kind of living for them is not a choice but an imperative. By working together and sharing their effort everybody benefits from efficient gathering of resources. Whether it is defending the community or collecting water, all chores are considered equally important for the community. In these kinds of communities the members have no need to want more than another member or even to stand out differently. Even the leaders of these societies fulfill a role out of necessity instead of status and their lifestyle is the same as all other members of the society. Thus apart from age and gender there are generally no other significant stratification in aboriginal societies. Everybody is cared for by others, nobody is richer or poorer than anyone and poverty is a consequence of natural disasters, not the lack of personal wealth.

Modern cities however are a wealth of class and diversity. Glorious opulence and abject poverty can exist in the same community. Poverty in cities have nothing to do with the lack of resources, instead it is the lack of wealth to purchase resources. To me this situation is possible because wealth is controlled by money and the distribution of money is based on the worth of an individual's time. Somehow every individual's time is valued differently without taking into account the value of the work that they do (any economist out there care to explain this phenomenon?). For instance nobody will deny the important work that janitors do. Their work is as crucial to the functioning of a city as that of the policemen, harbour masters or the mayor, yet the janitor is paid the least. In an aboriginal society the janitors work will be considered the same worth as everybody else's, but in a capitalistic society they may earn so little that they may not be able to afford the most basic standard of living. Capitalistic societies, which just about all cities in the world subscribe to, condones this disparity in wealth distribution.

Capitalism evaluates worth of time based mainly on intellectual, academic, social or even political acumen. While capitalism gives freedom for any member of a community to accumulate as much wealth (through many forms of commerce) as they can muster based on their effort and ingenuity (this is the rat-race) it does not condemn exploitation as a means of generating wealth. If exploitation is present, which it usually is in capitalism, the gap between have and have-nots will be wide enough for class consciousness to perisit. Thus the birth of a disharmonious city where money is controlled by the elite and powerful and time is exploited from the lower and middle class of the city.

In the previous Pondering article on Time is Money, I reviewed some websites that gave ways of calculating the worth of one's time. Do you think you are getting paid enough or does your business earn you enough for your basic livelihood? I ask this because inflation of living expenses is a global happening that may be entering into the status of a crisis. It amazes me that there is no real value in the marketplace for human effort. While prices of commodities can float in stock markets, human effort has no place in the trading floor. This means that even if the price of fuel per gallon goes up and your transportation cost to work increases, there are no avenues for automatic increase in salary to offset this increase in living expenses. While all businesses and institutions depend on the people running them to get to work on time, there is no market force to provide monetary value to this human effort. Worse still most companies will gladly pay all their directors and upper level employees transportation expenses, but lower staff can be denied such benefits. Fuel prices is just one example, the cost of all other important commodities such as food, water and housing are also tied to the fluctuations on the market floor.

Despite its shortcomings, capitalism is obviously here to stay. Given a choice I think most of us still prefer living in our cities, towns and suburbs instead of subsistence living in nature. However I don't think we should put up with capitalistic exploitation of human effort. In my non-economist simplistic view, I see that the problem of disparity in capitalistic societies arises in the fact that inflation of essential commodities bears no effect on the value of human effort. If a relationship is forged between the two and inflation is factored directly into human the value of effort, then the worth of one's time will reflect the actual value of one's effort and not a value that favours capitalistic exploitation.

I believe we need some kind of universal financial mechanism to be set in place for minimum wage per hour of human effort to float with inflation of necessary livelihood commodities. If such an mechanism is in place I believe inflation of essential commodities will naturally ease and poverty can be averted for those willing to work for an honest days salary. Until then the upper echelon of capitalists will always find ways of exploiting the middle and lower income groups by arbitrarily controlling their hourly wage. However, we do have a choice. Either force for more equitable change in wealth distribution or simply cast it all away and live in the bosom of pristine nature instead of man-made-nature.

Time is Money, Part One : Remember Time is Money said Ben Franklin

2011-08-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

I was pondering the adage that time is money. Wikiquotes revealed that the adage is from an advice given by Benjamin Franklin (one of the Founding Fathers of The United States) to a young trader way back in 1748. He actually said, "remember time is money". Today parroting time is money is such a cliche that one might be forgiven for taking its personal significance for granted. In a sense since we have to fork out money to pay for so many things in life on a timely basis (daily food, weekly groceries, monthly bills, mortgage, annual taxes, etc.) we scarcely need reminder that time is money. Really though, I wonder how much money my time is worth. How to quantify it? Right off the top of my head I came up with some simple calculations, I also did some research on the internet to find out if there were formulas out there that we could use.

The most simple formula that I figured out is basic maths. Take your mortgage divide 30.5 and that is the minimum wealth to make per day to keep a roof over your head until the mortgage is paid off. Take your total basic monthly expenses and divide it by the same and that is how much you need to make per day, even on Saturdays and Sundays, to maintain your lifestyle. Refining this calculation to be more effective means one would take the actual money producing hours, i.e. average monthly work hours or industry hours and divide it with the total basic monthly expense and your minimum per hour dollar amount is revealed. Here is a simple formula I created to determine this.

$/h(V) = Monthly Expense (including tax)(M) / effective hours of work (not including commute time)(W) multiply with 22 (Average workdays in a month)

V = M / 22W

This simple formula can be useful especially if you are deciding to start your own business and are wondering how much the minimum income is that you need to make per hour. This is a good figure to have in mind to reason or justify expenses in time and money in the pursuit of business leads or marketing.

If you have a monthly salary, then the formula is much more simple. If income does not exceed expense than you are on an even keel. If effective money making time is your bosses money, if you are comfortable with the work you are doing and the company is financially bullish the fact that time is money is usually an ignorable fact. However if expenses (this should also include those pesky bank charges and credit card interest and tax) exceeds income then time becomes more than money, it also becomes stress! Especially when those monthly bills or phone calls start coming in. It also means it is time to ask for a raise, find another job, get into business yourself or the quickest solution, axe spending.

If you are interested in finding what your time is actually worth there is this article on 'Running a Business' in about.com that can help you figure it out. Here is a quote from the article.

"How much is your time worth?
Have you figured it out? If not, you should. To figure the minimum, figure out how much money you're making per year and divide it by 2,000. To figure the maximum, consider how much you make for your most productive time -- closing a deal, a speaking engagement, billable client time, etc. Somewhere in between there is the real value of your time.
There's a saying which I recall reading somewhere (I thought it was Harvey Mackay, but I haven't been able to track down the quote):
Don't pay someone $25 an hour to do $7 an hour work.
Plug your own numbers in there. Maybe it needs to be, "Don't pay someone $50 an hour to do $20 an hour work." You're the first number. Whatever your time is worth, think about each and every activity that you're spending time on on a regular basis. Could you outsource it to a bookkeeper, a virtual assistant, a web designer, a copywriter, a part-time employee, your spouse or even one of your kids? It's very difficult for most entrepreneurs to relinquish that control and delegate, but it's one of the best ways that you can ultimately increase your income while decreasing the number of hours you work."

Here is the link to the article: Time is Money, How much is your time worth? on About.com. About.com also has plenty of resources on time management and advice on starting businesses. I find about.com more relevant than wikipedia most of the time.

In 2002 a British university professor created a mathematical equation which concluded that the average British minute is worth 10 pence for men and 8 pence for women. With inflation since 2002 and the current economic doldrums of the West these figures are probably higher. If you want to calculate that figure the formula is available in an article that appeared in CNN Tech. This is the formula V=(W((100-t)/100))/C, click here to find out how to use it.

While these formulas may all be useful academics, the bottom line is how does the statement that Time is Money effect you. Are you comfortable with it? Do you loathe it? Do you enjoy it? Or does it make you run in circles? If you are not really sure and want to gauge yourself on exactly how you stand with the adage Time is Money, there is "The Time is Money Test". It is true or false test put together by inc.com that can help you uncover your standing. It is designed for business owners but unfortunately, does not come with an evaluation. It can be useful nonetheless. Click here to go the test.

It is interesting that Benjamin Franklin's advice was "remember time is money". I think these days, especially if you own your own business, the reminder is not so necessary. How to make time work for our money instead of money work for our time is more cut-to-the-chase relevant. There are plenty of advise and courses out there, online and realtime on this. If you want to share a link that you found especially useful on the subject of time is money, or good time management practices do share it in the comments. Your thoughts on this matter is welcome too. My next article on Time is Money will be from a psychological perspective.

What is Time? (Life Positive Online Forum - Time Matters)

2011-07-03T01:02:00.000-07:00

What is Time?

Time is a mysterious and crucial element of living. Fortunately there is nothing we need to do to get time, though time can be lost and wasted. We cannot retrieve time, but time always renews itself so that at any point we have a cache of tiime available.

How can we define time? I define time as an imaginary element that is used to measure change. Time is imaginary because it is relative to the fact that we live on Earth, and its measure begins with the imaginary date and time line at 0 degrees longitude. So our time is set based on an internationally accepted imaginary line that runs across the Pacific Ocean. Here is an excerpt from geography.about.com, "While the world is divided into 24 time zones, there has to be a place where there is a difference in days, somewhere the day truly "starts" on the planet. Thus, the 180° line of longitude, exactly one-half way around the planet from Greenwich, England and 0° longitude is approximately where the International Date Line is located. Cross the line from the east to the west and a day is added. Cross from west to the east and a day is subtracted." (Click Here to read the rest of this article.)

If we lived on Mars we will have to devise an entirely new measure of time based on how fast the planet spins on its axis and how long it takes to orbit the sun. Imagine if we were on Mars what would a day be relative to Earth? I did some research on the internet to find out how time would be on Mars. Interestingly scientist have yet to decide what a day in Mars is. Here is an excerpt from universetoday.com regarding a day in Mars.

"How long is a day on Mars? Great question! There are two ways to determine the length of a day on any celestial body. The sidereal day and the solar day. A sidereal day on Mars is the length of time that it takes the planet to rotate once on its axis. A sidereal day on Mars lasts 24 hours 37 minutes and 22 seconds. The solar day is how long it takes the Sun to return to the meridian. This position changes slightly each day, but a solar day on Mars lasts 24 hours 39 minutes and 35 seconds." (To read the rest of this article on Mars Click Here)

I was surprised to find that Mars would probably have either 37 to 39 minutes more in a day, I thought it would be much longer. However we gain lots more time compared to Earth if we lived a full Mars year. One Mars year equals to about 669 Earth days, or 1.88 Earth years. Can you imagine waiting 669 days for your birthday? If we were in Mars our perspective of time would change wouldn't you think? Imagine if people could migrate to Mars. How would the age of a person born in Mars be calculated? If such a scenario becomes a reality many decisions will have to be made that are related to time. From the calculation of age to when Martians would get their monthly salary to when to pay insurance premiums.

Anyway the point I am trying to make with this extraterrestrial sojourn on time is that our perspective of time is relative to our planet. However, while the measure of time may be subject to our position in the universe, time as a measure of change is an absolute reality in our daily life. This reality of time is such an important factor in shaping our experiences. After all isn't it because of time that we can be late, on time or early, or we can be get to an event, miss an event or get time mixed up for an event, or can get out of situtions, get into situations, even ignore situations.Time also gives rise to fast, slow and stasis. What else does time give rise too? Please feel free to chime in with your comments and thoughts.

In the next article I am going to contort time through a mystical tangent, where time like emotions and thoughts is a mystical element that can be mastered.

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Time Matters, Introduction - A Life Positive Forum

2011-06-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

This month (July 2011) Life Positive Forum will be exploring time. Time is an aspect of life that matters to us from the moment we begin life on earth with our first breath. From that moment onwards events in our life begin to be set in time. Yet time is a perspective that is relative. The time as we know it only exists because of the rate of rotation of our planet on it its axis and the rate of orbit of our planet around the sun. In other words time in Jupiter or the moon would be different, wouldn't it? Could this mean that time is not as absolute as gravity or other forces of the universe? Is there such a thing as Universal Time? Can time slow down or speed up? How did our ancients understand time? Can we master time?

Using this Pondering blog and Mystic Musings blog I will be exploring time and looking to innovate perspectives relatied to time. Please join me through your comments in this blog or YouTube videos I might post on this subject and let us explore Time Matters in this online Life Positive Forum.

Nostalgia, Conversations to Bridge the Generation Gap - A Life Positive Forum

2011-06-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

On May 16, a Life Positive Forum was held at SVA at 8.00 pm. It was the commencing of a Life Positive project to document the nostalgic recollections of senior generations. It is based on the often given advice to the younger generation that starts with "When I was your age I............" In the forum some of the elders who attended shared some of their experiences when they were younger, most of it echoed the challenges that they faced when growing up, much of which modern living has erased for most youth today. I picked the brains of the youth present to come up with questions on what they would ask their elders if they were given a chance to seek some wisdom from the past. These are the questions that they came up with.

1. Could you share any experience from your past that you think the youth of today would miss out on because of modernization?

2. Is there a moment or crucial experience that served as a crucial milestone to make you who you are today?

3. What challenges did you face in your lifestyle as you experienced changes that the world went through?

4. What can you share about getting the respect of peers and community with the youth?

5. What advise can you give about the process of aging?

I have an ambitious plan of presenting these questions to some of the elders whom I know and will get to know in the future, and posting their responses to these and other questions on Life Postive Forum Facebook site. In time I plan this collection to be a repository of advise and hope for the youth growing up for all the eras to come.

Polar Ice Sheets and Global Climate Change - by Dr. K. Pannirselvam, Guest Speaker, Life Positive Forum

2011-04-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Dr. K. Pannirselvam, a NASA scholarship awardee, is a Ph.D. holder in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas, USA. His research interest has been in the area of radar remote sensing of polar ice in support of global climate studies. Consequently was employed as a research professor at the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas in 2002. In 2003 he received the University of Kansas Graduate School’s prize for the most outstanding dissertation in 2003. He returned to Malaysia in September 2006 under the Malaysia Government’s Brain Gain Malaysia (BGM) programme. He is currently a Senior Staff Researcher at MIMOS Bhd where he develops wireless telecommunication products in support of the Malaysian Government’s initiative to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas by bringing internet connectivity to the whole of Malaysia. Dr. Pannir, is one of only a handful of Malaysians who have seen Antartica, let alone live and work there. Since his return to Malaysia he has been sharing the environmental research work that he had done while in Antartica to Malaysians to create environmental awarness on this side of the planet. We are grateful to have him here at the Life Positive Forum and provide him with a platform for his much needed environmental mission. Brought to you by www.HinduSearchEngine.com and www.MyHinduPage.org. The video below is the presentation thad Dr. Pannirselvam gave on April 11, 2011 during the Life Positive Forum titled the Rejuvenating Power of Nature.

The Rejuvenating Power of Nature

2011-04-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

This blog is part of the content of a Life Postive forum with the same title.

My heart and prayers go out to the Japanese people who have to endure the devastating impact of their most recent tsunami. Reading the stories and watching the videos of recovery that have been pouring through the internet has replaced my feeling of sympathy for the Japanese people for one of deep admiration. No doubt this is a nation that is no stranger to disasters of all kinds, that of man and nature alike. Indeed their resilience, response, discipline and care in handling the unprecedented effect of this terrifying tsunami, even by Japanese standards it seems, has left a feeling of inspiring awe for a nation of disciplined and industrious people. I can only hope that our nations can execute such excellence in fortitude in such a calamity. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Japanese for their example.

Intense events like this tsunami and not too long ago the devastating earthquake in New Zealand effects not only those who have to experience them first hand but also all those who come to know of these events. The scale and speed at which nature can unleash her fury can make even the most resilient among us ponder on the security of our individual existence. At the very least we have to deal with the sadness that the news of devastation causes us. A couple of common quandary that comes out of dealing with this sadness is wondering why this tragedy had to happen and what do we do to deserve such fury of nature? The internet is awash with as many points of view as there are those who care to post their thoughts. This is my perspective. First the quick answers. To the question why this tragedy had to happen, my answer is obvious, we live on planet earth. To the question what people do to deserve such devastating experiences, my answer is a cryptic question, it is, don't we all deserve the same?(Allow me to explain my perspective, for ultimately these answers are sourced from mystical and positive perspectives. The Explanation is in my Mystic Musings Blog. Click here to go to the blog to read "The value of natural disasters.")

On the Japan earthquake day (March 11) I was preparing to go to the island of Phuket in Thailand with a group of friends for a vacation cum pilgrimage. We were all in high spirits as you would expect in preparation for a vacation. In Phuket the weather was perfect and the sea was in her best and most alluring behaviour. She was beautiful to behold and graciously gentle as she provided us with much fun. We kept tabs with the news occasionally and were dismayed by the images of devastation. I also met with a Thai friend who was at the thick of the search and rescue effort during the 2004 Tsunami that struck Phuket. The unfolding news in Japan brought up all sorts of memory for him and others I met in Phuket of their time of trial. It impressed me that none of them even cared to seek a justification of why they had to endure such a tragedy. In Phuket they have picked up the pieces and moved on. This of course is the inevitable course for all those who endure natural disasters, whether earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes or volcanic eruptions.

I lived through a powerful hurricane when I was in training in my guru's monastery in the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. It was in September 1992, Hurricane Iniki had unusually diverted its course northwards from the equator with its eye set to pass squarely over our Island. The category 4 hurricane was packing wind gusts of more than 370 km/h. It was devastating to the Island of Kauai to say the least. No building was spared damage from wind or wave, for those ocean front properties. When we came out of our stronghold in the monastery which was our temple that was purposefully built to withstand hurricanes, the scene outside looked like a bombed out war zone. Uprooted trees and heavy branches littered all the walkways. Trees seemed naked bereft of their leaves. The scene was surreal and saddening. However the sadness didn't linger. An hour later we were all in a meeting with our guru, with everybody being assigned duties of recuperating. There was a cleanup crew, a communication and energy team, food, inventory and hygiene managers. A team went to checkup on the neighbours. There was no time for brooding. In fact it felt inspiring now that the danger had passed we were picking up the pieces moving toward a new and positive future. This was true of many of the Kauiians we met. We survived Iniki together and everybody was busy working together to get the Island back on its feet. There was no room for any differences, prejudice or bias. Everyone was equally affected and everybody helped each other. People from the other unaffected Hawaiian Islands and other states rushed to give support. The days following the destruction caused by Hurricane Iniki was not sad as one might think, but inspiring, especially with the outpouring of friendliness, generosity and help.

This is a wonder of nature to me. Unlike man made calamities where assigning blame and hatred is the first order of business, natural disasters may cause worse destruction, but it can also bring out the best and inspiring among its survivors and those who give support. Natural disasters can crumble not only buildings, but barriers of hatred as well, to the point of causing enemies to set aside differences and lend a hand. A fresh and rejuvenating start on many levels, from physical to spiritual, are positive outcomes of natural disasters once Mother Nature returns to her natural nurturing self. I believe this outpouring of unconditional love and care that follows these catastrophes is just as important to humanity as the violent unleashing of Earth's geology is important to for the maintenance of Earth's weather balance. This reminds me of a Hinduism Today magazine article that covered a massive earthquake disaster in Maharashtra, India sometime in the mid 90's. The reporter was interviewing an elderly man who was laying bricks to rebuild his home that razed to the ground. This man had this enlightened wisdom to share. He said that the earthquake was an act of God, so there is nobody to blame and no hatred to carry on to the future.

On a more practical note, during the recovery from Hurricane Iniki in Kauai, I was in charge of recovering food stocks and keeping inventory of food and medical supplies. From previous a experience of hurricane that the monastery had gone through ( I was not there then) there were boxes in the pantry with 'hurricane supplies' labels on them. Unfortunately most of the food and batteries inside were unusable because they were about a decade old. Even if we were able to use the supplies, there would not have been enough to last us more than a couple of days. After Iniki we learned our lesson and made sure that our food, water and medical supplies was prepared to last us at least two weeks. We also set up a schedule every year to use up the emergency supplies and replenish it with new stock, so these supplies are always fresh and ready for use. We even bought electrical generators and set up an emergency power circuit for the entire monastery in event of power outages. Iniki left us without electricity for three months and treated tap water for two weeks. So where ever you are living, please be aware of what natural disasters your area is prone to and prepare for it as best you can. This is positive and pragmatic living, for we are living in a planet that strives to maintain balance for the benefit of all life. This balancing act can be violent and may involve us at anytime, so it is good to be prepared.

I received many emails on the anecdotes of amazing survival stories from Japan. This happens with all natural disasters. Often during the worst of times, humanity comes out with its best potential. Of all the emails I really liked the one below and wish to keep it in record on this blog for all to read. Here it is:

10 THINGS TO LEARN FROM JAPAN

1. THE CALM: Not a single visual of chest-beating or wild grief. Sorrow itself has been elevated.

2. THE DIGNITY: Disciplined queues for water and groceries. Not a rough word or a crude gesture.

3. THE ABILITY: The incredible architects, for instance. Buildings swayed but didn’t fall.

4. THE GRACE: People bought only what they needed for the present, so everybody could get something.

5. THE ORDER: No looting in shops. No honking and no overtaking on the roads. Just understanding.

6. THE SACRIFICE: Fifty workers stayed back to pump sea water in the N-reactors. How will they ever be repaid?

7. THE TENDERNESS: Restaurants cut prices. An unguarded ATM is left alone. The strong cared for the weak.

8. THE TRAINING: The old and the children, everyone knew exactly what to do. And they did just that.

9. THE MEDIA: They showed magnificent restraint in the bulletins. No silly reporters. Only calm reportage.

10. THE CONSCIENCE: When the power went off in a store, people put things back on the shelves and left quietly!

RESOURCES YOU CAN USE:

For images of planets, space and knowledge base on astronomy:

www.jpl.nasa.gov

Very good resource for timeline of Earth’s geologic and biologic history: www.scientificpsychic.com/etc/timeline/timeline.html

Preparing for natural disasters:

www.fema.gov

www.72hours.org

This Life Postive Forum content can be found in the Mystic Musings Blog and Pondering Blog of www.myhindupage.org Pondering blog title: The Rejuvenative Forces of Nature; Mystic Musings blog: The Value of Natural Disasters

A HELPFUL E-BOOK ON PREPAREDNESS

Happy Deepavalli 2010 and Millenium Anniversary of Thanjavur Big Temple

2010-11-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Deepavalli (Diwali) 2010 to all who are celebrating the Festival of Lights. This is a wonderful day to remind us of the power of illumined wisdom that can dispel dark ignorance in a flash.

There are a number of festivals in the Hindu tradition that are celebrated in solidarity among all the sects of Hinduism. These celebrations are Ganesha Chaturthi, Navaratri (Dusheera) and Diwali (Deepavalli). They unite Hindus in joyous celebration that remind us that God is One and paths to God are many. I believe that as Hindus we have a mission in the world to continue practicing the truth that God is Universal. Swami Vivekananda did this successfully and the world can use his inspiration today in accepting the fact that we are all the children of God, irrespective of our many differences. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam–The Entire Earth is But One Family is such a wonderful philosophy to be fanatical about.

To celebrate Deepavalli this year I created a collage of photos and videos of the Big Temple in Thanjavur – Thanjavur Periya Kovil, Tamilnadu; also known as Brihadeshwarar temple. This temple is on of the architectural wonders of the ancient world. ( Learn more about Thanjavur Temple at HinduSearchEngine.com . Search Thanjavur )

2010 is an historic year for Brihadeshwarar because it is celebrating its millenium anniversary. 1000 year old sturctures are rare in the world. However what makes Brihadeshwara unique among such ancient structures is that it is still functioning for the purpose for which it was built by the famed Tamil King Rajaraja Cholan. In fact all the ceremonies of this temple are still performed very much like how it must have been done during the time of King Rajaraja. It is a proud achievement that should be shared with all of humanity.

The background audio for this collage is a Tirumurai song that hails from a tradition of Tamil saints–nayanars, that is equally ancient as Brihadeshwarar itself. Happy Deepavalli to all who are celebrating and to the everyone else in the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.

The stills seen in the video of this post are available for download. Click Here for the download link at myhindupage.org online shop.

The Hindu View of Organ Donation

2010-08-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

On July 14 2009, I was invited as a panelist in forum organized by the Nilai University College during its Ribbon Week. The Ribbon Week is an event initiative by the college to increase awareness in Malaysia on important health causes. There are four colour coded ribbons that represent:

White Ribbon: Maternal and Child Health

Pink Ribbon: Breast Cancer

Green Ribbon: Organ Donation

Red Ribbon: HIV and AIDS

The forum was to enlighten the public on the various religious points of veiw on the practice of organ donation. There was four of us, a Buddhist monk, a Christian Pastor, A Muslim lecturer and I of course represented Hinduism. Below is the introductory text of my opening for the Hindu Point of View on Organ Donation.

In my years of Hindu missionary work in Malaysia and abroad I have not encountered a situation where a Hindu leader or guru has forbidden organ donation or organ transplanting. However, no authority in Hinduism has come up with guidelines for this relatively new innovation in medical care. (Relative from the the point of view of human history). In general organ donation is considered the personal choice of an individual.

I personally believe that if the late Sage Charaka, an eminent Ayurvedic surgeon, were here today, he would be very excited about organ transplanting and will most likely delve into this field with no hesitation. Charaka is an historic figure in the development of Ayurveda, the Hindu medical system. During his time, about 1000 years ago, he innovated facial reconstruction techniques.

From the spiritual point of view, organ donating will amount to good karma for the departing soul of the body and also the family who willingly allow the use of the donated organ. This is obvious especially if the organ transplanting is successful and the welfare of the receiver is preserved or becomes better. The good feelings and gratitude of the receiver and his loved ones will transform to a good deed for the soul and his immediate family, hence the good karma.

According to Hinduism the body of the departed is but a shell or vehicle of the soul to experience life and express itself on earth. Once the soul departs, the physical body is not important to the welfare of the soul. In general unless the soul has achieved liberation from the cycle of reincarnation, the soul will go on to another life on earth in a different body. Thus the preservation of the body after the soul departs has no consequence to the evolution of the soul. In fact the tradition of cremating the body is to make the soul become aware as soon as possible of its disconnection from life on earth so it may continue with its spiritual journey.

However it is important for the organ donor to inform his or her immediate loved ones of the their willingness to donate their organs if they are viable at death. Since the soul will lose rights to its body after it departs, it is important that the decision is a joint decision among family. Any good karma that the soul might accrue from organ donation will be cancelled if the action causes upset or hurt feelings among his immediate loved ones.

Being on the receiving end, the patient has to go through various challenges to accept the new organ into his or her body. Since the process is against the basic natural order of nature, the body initially rejects it biologically. However, technology to overcome this has become more advanced and efficient over the years, therefore success rates and risk have considerably improved. I believe these days it is taken for granted that organ transplants are successful.

From the spiritual point of view, the receiver neither accumulates good nor bad karma. However organ donation can have psychological consequences for the receiver of an organ. According to yoga philosophy, which is the basis of Hinduism, our mind, particularly the subconscious mind exists in the entire body and is not isolated in the brain. In fact different organs will hold different emotional impressions, memories and tendencies of the donor. Organs that hold the most intense of these are the heart, eyes, stomach. liver, larynx, hearing organs, pancreas and the gonads. Other organs such as the bones, skin, kidneys, tongue and blood hold mainly personality tendencies.

Thus when an organ is transplanted from one person to another, part of the mind and personality of the person can be transfered. This transfer however is more subtle and depends on the intensity of the memories of the the donor. In most cases overcoming the rejection process of the body can erase most of these subconscious impressions in the organ. However, if the impressions are especially intense positively or negatively, they can amalgamate into the subconscious of the receiver. The receiver can have flashes of memory that is not theirs and changes in personality can occur.

As far as I know mainstream medical care does not recognize this consequence of organ transplanting. There is sporadic evidence for this, but because of the subjectivity of it, it is mainly ignored by modern medical care of organ transplant patients. I believe that modern medical care also dissuades the receiver from knowing of or meeting the donors family, that is if they are unrelated. Though it would be therapeutic for the patient if they encounter changes in their personality or encounter memories not theirs, to meet with the donors family. At the very least they should be prepared to ignore memories not theirs and regain their own personality if they sense changes since the subconscious can be reprogrammed internally.

To summarize, organ donation from the Hindu point of view is a spiritually advantages deed for the donor, if the decision is made with the knowledge and agreement of those close to the donor. For the receiver it is more challenging physically and in the mind. However, when these challenges are overcome, it can be considered their good karma to have a new lease on life. A win-win situation in other words.

The Recession – A Spiritual POV

2010-08-16T22:55:00.000-07:00

I thought I would meditate on the current economic downturn to gain an inner perspective on this global situation. An inner perspective is looking at something from the 'inside out' as my guru used to say. The 'inside out' perspective is a meditative perspective. It can reveal surprising information and insight into a subject or situation that would otherwise escape us, as this perspective draws directly for the Omniscience of God.

To get into this perspective I first need to identify at least three external ramifications of the global economic slow down. The most obvious ramification is the climate of insecurity. This insecurity encapsulates the fear of loss of income, job insecurities and general money matters. The second ramification are those who have lost their sources of income and the difficulties they may be going through in managing their finances and looking for a new job. The third ramification is the uncertainty of recovery. With many predictions of recovery time creating an air of confusion. I package these three ramifications neatly in my mind as three basic emotions and state of mind which are, fear, depression and confusion.

Holding three points of concentration and meditating by dissolving each one into God's Consciousness is a meditation technique that is called samayama. It can reveal surprising and useful information.

The vision that I got from this meditation, is that this economic down turn is a cycle of nature. One might think that nature is climate, birds and trees, space and the such, but money? Yes wealth also follows a cycle of nature because the people manage wealth and people are products of nature. Our natural urges that causes us to buy and sell come from within us and as much as we might think that wealth or more specifically money is an inanimate product, its flow is dictated by nature.

As the vision progressed, I saw the cycle of ecology working on the larger economics. This cycle is the most basic supply and demand cycle. Ecology keeps nature in a state of balance. If there is too much of something, then the opposite entity that will consume whatever that is in excess grows, thus maintaining the balance.

These are the two visions that I got. The product of samayama are terse visions like these that give clues to deeper understanding. As I pondered these visions after the the samayama session, the first question that came to mind was, what in human nature got to such an excessive extent that it warranted such a drastic collapse of tradtional system of wealth management? The answer was obvious, it is greed.

Greed is part of human nature and it is responsible for this massive financial collapse that is effecting millions, even billions of lives with tribulations. When greed took over the global financial system, it colored peoples mind with a dirty green of amassing unequitable amounts of wealth for themselves. This process is most clearly highlighted by the Bernard Madoff scandal (which I am not going to bother to get into since there is enough information out there about it).

My purpose of doing this meditation is not only to find the source of this problem from the 'inside out' but also to look for a practical lesson that can be learned and applied. Finding the source of the problem is the first step. Now that the source is discovered the easy part is deriving the lesson, but the toughest part will be application of the lesson.

It is a basic lesson, don't get greedy. Greed first seems to give, albeit for selfish ends, but invariably it will end up taking away more than it gave in the first place. As the cycle of nature has it, we are now forced to live by principles of frugality, in managing our resources more wisely, of not wasting, of living by our means, of being content with getting what we need even if we cannot get all that we want.

If we do learn the lesson of not being deceived by greed again much good will come out of it. One of the most important outcome of applying the lessons from this global trial is much less wasteful spending, which is good for our planet as a whole. After all if people bought less stuff, there would be less rubbish to be dealt with, which means our environment will benefit tremendously and of course we will benefit from better climate. After all isn't drastic climate change a bigger trial that is looming on the horizon; is not greed also the cause current climate crisis that is getting more serious by day?

When I ponder these thoughts deeper I shudder to think of what is yet to come as our weather gets more intense. This intensity in climate is also nature bringing our exploitive greedy nature in check. In a sense I tend to think that God is giving us a warning of what is yet to come if do not learn and apply the lessons of responsible wealth and resource management and not wasting. These are basic lessons really, but ones we need to learn and apply quickly. Otherwise we are in for facing a greater blow to our greed's pride, one that is much more ominous than our current situation.

So lets do our part. Lets be careful how we spend our resources. Lets adapt our desires so we glorify contentment in life instead of short term gratifications of materialism. Lets be concerned about the little things like recycling our resources, not wasting what we use and inculcating the younger generation in this culture.

We have time, but we must not dally in the complacency of waiting for things to get better so we can continue our previous patterns of excess in the future. We must be proactive, we must turn this negative energy created by this recession into a positive habit pattern, so the we do not need to learn the same lesson from the same old mistake, especially since the next time around the lesson will be harder. We must make a difference and do our part in conservation and being more benevolent and not greedy.