Tag Archives: God

What does being Dead means?

Image March 6, 2014 jcisnowjs 4 Comments

No, I am not being all dark or over inspired by death. I am not built the pessimistic way. It’s just some events and a writer’s theme inspired me to think about it. You now must be knowing it well enough, that what I think, I write.

So, the thought process started with, what it would be like to be a dead person? What would happen to me one day (not soon hopefully), when I will die?

Strangely, have you ever noticed, when someone dies we actually never think about that person. Yes, it’s true. We rather talk about how was that person in the past. We say, oh he was such a nice man, he was very kind, so lovable. Why it happened to him, he was so full of life?

Or we will think about what would have been his future, only if he hasn’t met this fatal end. We will say, oh he was so bright, he was just about to open up a new business. Or he could have been married next year.

Mostly, we talk about the family, which was left devastated by the loss. We will think about them, their future, like what will happen to them now? How will they cope? How will they move on? What will happen to the kids, to the wife?

We are always worried about the living.

Has anyone thought about it the other way, like where is that person now? Is he seeing us, worrying about his family? Is he around us? Is he crying over his own death, or thinking about the crisis that his family is facing? How is he coping with all this loss? Every one else has lost one important person from their life, but him, he has lost everyone, in just a second. He has lost his mother, father, wife, kids, his aspirations, ambitions, future, everything.

What it would be like if someday I’ll be dead? What would happen to me? What if there is no hell or heaven? I will not go anywhere and will stay here with everyone, just invisible. Not like a ghost, or maybe a ghost just without any demonic powers. What if I’ll be just like an invisible person which can do nothing other than watching everyone going on with their daily routine in few days, weeks, or months.

What it would feel like if after a year of my death (hopefully no sooner), I will be sitting on the same couch with my hubby, but he won’t even notice my presence, or what if he is with someone else? What if he is happy and back to his lively self? What if he is same, like the way he was when I was alive? What if my parents who gave life to me, would not even think of me in their prayers? What would it feel like when my own kids will forget about me. They will adapt to their new life, move on. A life of which I am not a part of. Maybe they won’t even know what their mother was like. Would that hurt me? Hurt me more than the death? Yes, it will hurt me. More than the death itself.

But, what it would feel like if after a year of my death, I will be sitting on the same couch with my hubby, but he would be all miserable, depressive because of my death? What if he is no longer that laughing, cheering, and full of life person that I fall in love with? What would I feel? What if I’ll saw my parents losing faith in God, because their precious child is taken away? What if I will see everyone in my family secretly crying and hiding their tears, so that they will look strong in front of others? What if I will see my kids still waiting for their Mamma to come back. Come back from somewhere, but just come back. What if they are still waiting? Would that hurt me? No, it will not only hurt me. It will tear me down. It will break me the way no death can ever do. It would be the worse.

I would prefer to go to hell for eternity than see my family like this.

I now know for sure that I would be content even with my death, if my family will move on. If they would live a life, which is full of Life. I would want them to move on. Maybe, I would be able to move too.

I am not dead. Not yet.

Thus I pray to God, that no one loose their loved ones.

I just pray…

Life, Movies

Lovelace on a Highway

Image March 3, 2014 jcisnowjs 5 Comments

Warning: Spoilers ahead, in case you haven’t watched the movies “Highway” and “Lovelace”.

A Sunday well spent is, a Sunday spent on a couch watching some random movies and instead of burying them somewhere in your mind, have something to write about them. This Sunday I watched Highway then Lovelace and then a show “Satyamev Jayate S2”. Surprisingly, all three of them were connected to a single theme – Abuse of Women. Here I am not writing about “Satyamev Jayate”, because I believe it would require a separately dedicated post.

So, here comes my review along with my thoughts on the two movies I watched this Sunday.

Highway:

Highway is a story of a posh and high class young girl, who somehow seems to be trapped in that high culture aristocracy of Delhi. But inside she is a child wanting to explore the world, to know what it feels like to be free for a single day. This feeling can be understood by her state of mind as she was getting married the very next day and she decides to have her last freedom drive with her fiancee That is when she got kidnapped by some haryanvi rustic kidnappers. She was taken through a bumpy ride across north India, where by the passing days of her ordeal she discovered that she is tasting freedom for the first time in her life. She is free to go but she is longing to go away further in her journey. She realized that she is actually falling for her kidnapper,(this transition is very badly represented though), a man who has a rough exterior but who respects her and treats her with realism. She is no longer living a fake life of etiquette and good manners. That’s when she breaks down and share her tormenting past of child abuse to her kidnapper. How she had to behave like nothing has ever happened just because they are living in a society where child abuse is not considered a good word to hear. How she was facing her rapist uncle everyday at her home, and still she was behaving normally in front of him, as if the whole thing was not real but some nightmare.

Lovelace:

Lovelace is based on a real life story of girl, Linda, who got famous as a porn star by doing a porn movie once. She was just a regular teenage girl who feel suffocated by her over controlling church going parents and decided to move away with her recently found love interest Chuck. Chuck, who seems to be true gentlemen, soon marries Linda. They hit a financial rough patch and that’s when Chuck decides that the most easy way to earn money would be to have Linda work in a porn movie. She was scared and felt devastated and runs back to her mother, who only sends her back saying that a woman should always obey her husband, and do whatever he desires. She obeys. But Chuck was no gentlemen, not anymore. Beatings started and soon to earn more money he sells her last dignity, her body. Not to a single man but to a group of monsters.

After watching these two movies I realized the condition of women is not different in any part of the world. They may seem progressive sometimes but still many of them are sacrificing their freedom and dignity for their loved once. Sometimes by them and sometimes for them. Only thing that makes a difference in a woman’s life is when she starts listening to herself. When she decides to live her life on her own terms. In both the movies, the protagonist finally stands for herself and that’s when she break this circle of abuse and move on to live a life of dignity and worth-fullness. In Highway, she decides to move away from her parents and live alone her life, working independently. In Lovelace, she decides to leave her abusing husband. She marries again, become a mother, and writes about her “Ordeal” so that she can help other girls who are going through marital abuse.

Reflecting point is that no matter who you are or where you belong to, until and unless you stand for yourself, no one is going to respect you for who you are.

Be yourself. Be strong.

Random

Story of Kavita – Enslaved in The Name of God, Helped by Mortals

Image February 5, 2014 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

Kavita seems to be an ordinary looking middle aged woman working her way out to earn a living, but look deep inside her eyes and you will see the pain and humiliation that she has gone through. To make the matter worse, what happened to her was done all in the name of God. How can any God be so merciless to deny a girl the right to study, right to stay with her family, right to have a family of her own, right to have a decent relationship in her life, right to marry a man, right to dream, right to be her.

Kavita was a Devdaasi, translated it means Slave of God. In actuality it means more than just a slave, it means married to the God for her entire life, but serve all the Men.

Devdaasi was a very old system practiced in India. Some say that it is still active in some of the rural villages of India. In this system, girls of 5 and 6 years of ages, were given to the temples, where they were married to the God in big ceremonies. The girl thus married to the God, can not marry anyone else, and served all her life in the temple as a slave. But, this was not all. Girls who were married to God, had no free will and thus mostly she was forced into prostitution. Only god knows how many girls have faced this humiliation of serving these devilish desires of men. Irony being a prostitute has a right to say no, but being slaves a Devdaasi didn’t even had that right. They were just reduced to being a Temple Prostitute.

Now that this practice is almost in extinction phase but still the ones like Kavita, who have come out of the system are working hard to make their ends meet. Being a single mother of two teen age children in a small village of Karnataka, India, she finds it hard to even manage the school fees of her kids. To top it all, as the stigma of Devdaasi is attached to her now for permanently, she and the likes of her do not find any job opportunity. Only thing that is left for them to live a dignified life is to start their own small business.

How can you Help Kavita?

Kavita has started a small business of selling textiles. But she needs more support to scale up her business. Her friends Kasthuri and Mallava also have the same stories. They are in buffalo and goat rearing business. What all of them need is some support from all of us so that they can scale up their business, and help their families to build a better future. These 3 women seek a loan of Rs.45,000, repayable over 18 months, to expand their small scale businesses. To help them and learn more about the cause, please visit Milaap’s site here.

Milaap and Mass are NGO, working with ASSET India Foundation for the empowerment of these women. These organizations are helping these women to come out of the Devdaasi system by providing them small support to start their own business and be financially independent. They are also helping their kids against human trafficking and giving them opportunity to study.

You can help Kavita and her group by lending her a helping hand in scaling up her business by lending a loan. In case you can not lend a loan, then do spread the word so that others who can, come to know of her plight and help her.

Please visit the Milaap’s site here to help Kavita. Because slavery to Man or to God, slavery is still slavery and there is nothing more valuable than Freedom.

Help her.

Life, Spiritual

Why We Pray to Shiva Linga?

Image February 3, 2014 jcisnowjs 6 Comments

Disclaimer: This article is based on my understanding made through reading various religious and spiritual books. Being a science student I have always looked for reasons behind everything, even when I know that some things can not be explained. Still, I have tried. Fool me. In no way my intentions are to hurt feelings or beliefs of anyone. In fact I am not strong enough to hurt your beliefs. So, try to read the below article with an open mind, otherwise you always have the choice of not reading it.

Why We Pray to Shiva Linga — Shiva Linga

Every time we bring Lord Shiva to our thoughts, there are generally two images that come to our mind. One that has form of a male human God wearing animal skin, having a drum (dumroo) in the hand, Ganga flowing throw hairs and snakes curled around the blue colored neck. Another image is that of a Shiva Linga, to be precise, denoting male phallus and female sexual organ (yoni) at the base.

But, why these two representation of Lord Shiva?

First lets discuss that why we are praying to what looks like the sexual organs of male and female body. So, while I was reading about the Kundalini, the Seven Chakras, and spiritual course of universe coming into existence from a single energy source. It struck me that what I have read in various religious books like Vedas, Shuk-Sagar and Shiv Puraan about Devas location and their role in universe creation, is actually so much related to our body, the Chakras inside and the sleeping Kundalini residing in the body.

Kundalini which dwells in the base of our spine in the Muladhaar Chakra, sleeps there in the coiled form. It rests in coiled form and thus sometimes expressed as a serpent, also named Bhujungi. This Kundalini when awakened is The Shakti, the ultimate energy form in its full power. Shakti which as per Indian Vedas and Puraans is the AadiShakti and companion of AadiShiva. Shiva who is static, used his Shakti the kinetic energy, to create the universe and everything in the universe. It is The Shakti, who has created everything as per the intention of Shiva, and she is thus the Mother of all. Sometimes also, referred as Mother Nature (Prakriti), and Maya the illusion.

Shakti and Shiva both complement and complete each other. Without his Shakti, Shiva is nothing, and without Shiva, Shakti is of no use. This can be stated in simple terms as, if Shakti is power, than Shiva is the Power Holder. If the power holder is not able enough or deserving to hold the power, then the power can not be put into any use. Same way, if a deserving power holder do not have enough power in his hands, he can not do anything useful. Thus, a union of Shiva and Shakti can be the only one powerful enough to create and hold everything in the union as one. That’s why when Shiva created this universe (Srishti), with the help of his Shakti, he took the form of Ardhnarishvar, God represented as half male and half female form.

Coming to how Kundalini is related to the universe creation and Shiva Shakti. Not going into much details here, (maybe in some another post), When Shakti was creating the Universe, one form that she took was, of Prakrti. As Prakrti she evolves Mind (Sixth Chakra), senses and matter of five forms namely Ether (fifth Chakra), Air (Fourth), Fire (Third), Water (Second), and Earth (last Muladhaar Chakra). When Shakti entered the last Chakra, her last creation of universe, she then went to rest there in her coiled sleeping form. This sleeping coiled Shakti is termed as Kundalini. This coiled Shakti, in her lowest form is represented as a serpent (Shakti) clinging to Linga (Shiva),or a yoni (Shakti) making a base for Linga (Shiva). Thus, when we are praying to a Shiva Linga we are also praying for the awakening of the Shiva’s Shakti.

In her true or active form, this Shakti travels through all the six Chakras upwards and move to the seventh Chakra, Shashrara lotus Chakra or Crown Chakra, the Chakra of Shiva. Shiva is said to reside in the Crown Chakra, the highest point. Shakti or Kundalini when awakened to her highest state moves to the Crown Chakra to unite with her Shiva. Here, with the union of Shiva and her Shakti, Moksha is achieved, as this is the stage of God. Here, Shiva and Shakti in union are represented as a point (Bindu), which is in reality the point of creation and also destruction of universe.

Now, to mention why Shiva is represented as two forms, one as Shiva Linga and other as a God in human form. My rendition is that, Shiva when represented as Shiva Linga is shown in his true formless nature, the Aadideva Shiva, in union with his Shakti. But, Shiva when represented as human god, is Mahadev (not Aadideva), along with Parvati by his side (but, not in union). This is the place which Mahadev or Rudra has taken along with other MahaDevs like, Vishnu and Brahma to take care of the Srashti (Universe), created by the Aadidevas Shiva-Shakti.