Women's Liberation

I am writing on this subject from Indian perspective.Indian society has undergone drastic change since independence. I recall, girls in the family in our time were not allowed to study beyond high school. In my family, none of my elder sisters went to college. Only two of my younger sisters who are 8-10 years younger than me went to college and obtained college degree. During this time, the elders in the family started allowing girls to go out of the house and study further. When my generation took over sometime in 1980-82, there was paradigm shift in attitude. The realisation dawned on us how important it is for girls to get education. Me and my brothers have given the best of education to our girls . It gives me lot of satisfaction to say that today, both my daughters are well qualified and financially independent. The girls of this generation in our family are Chartered Accountants, Engineers, Doctors, MBA. They are much more confident than their predecessors. I am sure the same scenario exists in all Middle Class Indian families. This is the positive development. But still, considering the population of India, the percentage of women who are educated is miniscule.

Females in India even today are by and large considered as liabilities. The chief reason being the hefty dowry one has to give to marry them. There are families who have to even sell their homes to meet the ever growing demands of the bridegroom and his families. If the girl’s parents fail to meet the demands, the girl is harassed, tortured, burnt to death. There is very stringent law in our country to deal with this crime but still so many dowry deaths are taking place every day. I feel more than the Law, it is the social awareness which can bring about transformation in the attitude of people. As along as women are financially dependent, there will be exploitation in the name of dowry. It is the education alone which can give financial independence to women. Women have proved themselves to be as competent as men in all professional fields. In some areas, they are even better than them.

But inspite of all this, there is sexual discrimination in Indian families as regards their upbringing, education, sports and other activities. They are not given the same rights as men when it comes to division of property in the family. They find it difficult to persue professional career after marriage due to family pressure. It is always the wife who is expected to sacrifice job when it comes to choosing between career and home. Working women find it very difficult to manage both family responsibilities and professional commitments.They are under extreme pressure to do balancing act and carry on with dual responsibilities. Husbands expect their working wives to come home in time and keep everything ready before they return from office. If the child is sick , it is always the wife who is expected to take leave from office and look after the child. Wife does not have the same freedom as husband in taking decisions in family matters. Male domination in Indian family is still prevalent.

We, as parents are largely responsible for this behavioural pattern. We are reluctant to break through age old tradition of giving preferential treatment to male child over female child right from the stage of conceiving to their upbringing in the family.

As long as this tradition will continue, our attitude towards women will not change. They will not be treated on par with male counterparts and there will be discrimination.

Healing through Transcendent Experience

Did you ever have transcendent experience that has healed you completely. Transcendent moments can be moments of ecstatic joy or moments of incandescent peace.
There are stories of ordinary people who have gone through these moments under extreme circumstances. These stories will move you completely. Let me share with you one such story.

"A terminally ill patient wakes up early one morning and sees the sun rising outside the window.Motionless, struck by the mesmerising beauty , the man stares at the sky.
It is'nt sky anymore....it's an ocean of swirling colors, the fiery red flooding into magneta, the glorious orange mixing with deep violet and pink..... all of it moving,changing,rearranging itself to it's own design.... the entire sky... an artiste's palette, exuberant ,overwhelming...... The sick man touches his heart holding to the window panes with his other hand. Such beauty, such magnificence,such peace.... takes away the loneliness, the dispair.... and emerges in it's place possibility,hope.

And the man makes a choice. I am going to live. I will beat this illness. I will get well.I will move on. And he does.

A transcendent experience brought about by the ethereal beauty of nature, giving birth to a will to live followed by total healing.

The neighbour next door, watching the same sunrise at the same time, notices the beauty of sky, pauses by the window for a moment and smiles, then looks at his watch and hurries to the kitchen to begin his day.

It does not mean the neighbour is the insensitive person. It does not mean he missed a grand opportunity to change the life for the better. For him, it was simply a usual morning with an unusually beautiful sunrise. That's all. Meanwhile the sick man had Transcendent experience that changed him at the very core giving him the will to triumph over his cancer.

Self Belief

Stress management is much talked about subject in corporate world now a days. They hire specialists to give them tips on how to manage stress under work pressure in workplace. Stress is not caused by work pressure as is generally believed but by the anxiety of failure to meet deadlines. Only those who have low self belief, self image will develop anxiety and hence stress. If stress level rises beyond a certain point, it can lead to depression and in the extreme case suicide. Stress management is required to reduce stress level.. Since stress is related to mind, yoga and meditation helps a great deal in reducing stress level. Stress management is post mortem. It does not prevent you from developing stress. This is where self belief comes in. If you increase self belief, you would not develop stress even under work pressure. Therefore, focus on developing self belief and not stress management. Prevention is better than cure. It is better to develop immune system of the body to fight infection rather than take medicines to fight it after it has infected the body. Self belief is believing in your own strengths to cope up with challenges, deadlines etc. People whose self belief is very strong are too excited to work under pressure. Their performance is at peak when made to work under pressure. They take this as an opportunity to showcase their talent. Hard work does not cause stress. Stress has nothing to do with physical effort. It has to do with fear, anxiety, inability to perform. Those who are emotionally weak are likely to develop stress under pressure. People with low self belief tend to think negative. They lack confidence in their own strengths,capabilities. They think of failure rather than success in whatever they do. They avoid taking any challenge for fear of failure. You can develop self belief by acknowledging the fact that you are not alone in this world to possess weaknesses. Every human being has got certain strengths and weaknesses. Write down all your weakness and strengths on a piece of paper. Tell yourself, I am going to leverage on my strengths and I will work towards improving my weaknesses. Next, you write down your worst fear.” It could be for example “If I fail to perform, I will lose my job”. Then write down, if that happens, how do I convert this threat into opportunity. You may write for instance “ If I lose the Job, I am going to join a course to develop my inter personal skill which I am not good at at present”. This is your action plan in the worst scenario. Having done that, you will find that you are now ready to take up the challenge and face the consequences if you fail.. If you perform with positive frame of mind, you will achieve success. You will discover, all your fears are unfounded, imaginary, baseless. In fact, you will soon realize 95% of all your fears are imaginary. They are in your mind. They are not real. They are your own creation. What is required is believing in your own abilities, your own potential. If you have seen cricket match, you might have noticed that sometimes, the team which is technically superior to the other team loses the match. It loses the match because it has lost it in mind even before the match started or before the match finished. If you are mentally prepared for defeat, you lose the match.. You stop making effort. Psychologists estimate that we use less than one third of our actual potential. By increasing our potential even marginally through self belief and positive thinking, we can make significant improvement in our performance. If you have negative attitude, temporary setbacks, failures will reinforce your negative thoughts which will lead to more and more failures. Contrary to this, if you have positive attitude, you will learn few lessons from the failures and will make yourself even stronger to face new challenges in life and achieve success. The best way to increase self belief is to gain practical experience by doing things rather than imagining failures and not making any attempt.

In search of soulmate

I have seen people spending years in search of a soul mate trying to see if the person they meet fits into their imagined picture of a perfect man or woman. They check them against their check list. They look for the right package and it does not work that way. It is the package you are after and that is what you will keep finding. And you will be hurt and disappointed again and again and eventually you join thousands of other men and women who like you have given up hope. How does it matter how tall or short a person is, how thin, how many degrees he has, how much money he earns. Why should you be concerned with what it looks like from outside. How many examples of picture perfect marriages that turned out to be nightmares do you need. Every week another divorce of a famous couple. You wonder how did it happen. They looked so perfect match.

Stop looking for the right packagings. They look beautiful from outside but what matters is the gift inside it. Wrappings are just used to decorate the gift. They are temporary, meant to be discarded. It is the gift, the content, the gem inside that counts ultimately.

What matters is your feelings. How do you feel when you are together,when it is the just the two of you , alone with no one looking. What happens when you simply take his hands into yours, when you look straight into his eyes.

Let it go. Let go of the need for the beautiful pictures. Our reality, so powerfully reflective gives us messages again and again. Is'nt it time we listen. Is'nt it time to live our own life and not the one others expect us to live. If you really want a soul mate, don't miss the opportunity when he comes along.

More thoughts on True Relationship

In a true relationship, you don’t necessarily have to agree with your partner 100%. God has made us unique in our thinking, likes and dislikes. If all of us start thinking in the same pattern, there will be no challenge, no fun,no excitement. The life will become monotonous,very boring. If two people live together, there will be times when they will disagree and fight. That’s normal. That’s natural. If that does not happen, then one or the other is selling out. It is better to fight it out and find a resolution rather than stop talking to each other. If things are really bad, take a short break, not hours of punishing silence.Dropping the subject in resignation is not going to work. In true relationship, relationship comes first, not the job, not the career,not me,not you. It does not matter who will wash the dishes. If one hates it, the other will do it. No one has died from washing the dishes as yet. It is better to wash the dish than to let the relationship sour over petty things. Happy couples are not polite with each other. They fight, they argue, they disagree. They are not always hugging, kissing and hanging on each other’s words. If your relationship is real, you will still make mistakes, you will still say things which will upset your partner. You may forget to pay attention, you may yell at each other or be silent together and yet your connection will always be there, alive,palpable,unique and those around you will feel your warmth and your closeness whether it is overt or very private. Politeness in relationship sets in when both the partners have given up. Politeness is the beginning of the end of relationship. At this stage, you avoid discussing issues which have caused strain in relationship. Being polite means not to say things which may hurt the feelings of partner and pretending to be happy, not be true to yourself. Politeness is the child of resentment. Resentment is the poison that kills relationship. Resentment is the mortar that holds together the walls of cold hostile silence between two people. Resentment is the anger laced with hurt. Unexpressed,unattended anger mixed with layers and layers of unanswered hurt. If resentment is allowed to grow inside, it will sink deep down, will begin it’s destructive work. It will color your thoughts and feelings, shape your responses, effect everything you do. You begin to see how misunderstood you are, how unappreciated and how badly you want to punish this most important person in life who once upon a time used to be everything to you. He must be hurt, attacked, destroyed because you are right. You hear yourself say things that should never be said, awful things,hurtful things you must never say even in anger.

Yes, true relationship is difficult and difficult it will remain if you choose not to deal with problems when they are occurring but instead comply,push the hurt deep down and tell yourself it is not there. You postpone the resolution of conflict. You even deny it’s existence. If problems are left unattended, if feelings are not shared, if misundersndings are not cleared, resentment will take it’s place. Like sediments that won’t dissolve, your resentment will sink to the bottom of that precious vessel that is your relationship and it will calcify, creating layer upon layer of hardened stuff that will create a wall separating you more and more from your partner