Management is an Art:Any Tom, Dick and Harry Can't be a Good Manager!

"The wise and all powerful beings who are responsible for the universe management undoubtedly know exactly what they are all about" 

[The Urantia Book 65:5.3]

First let me make some distinction about the word management. The word when used as a verb means the 'act of managing some work'. Here managing means accomplishment of an objective successfully. Management when used as a noun can have several meanings. It could mean the team of people who manage a business organization or the academic study topic that covers the principles of management.

I consider success in fulfilling the objective is an important aspect of management. Thus, when an act fails to fulfill its objective, I would say it was with no management. Thus success is directly linked to management. No success, then there is no management! It is not required to specifically qualify management as poor or bad or improper. At least that is the way I consider it, though it is now common for people to call some managements in that manner as failed objectives in tasks and businesses are becoming more and more common.

A person who accomplishes a task or a business or a project or a mission successfully is a good manager. His or her management of the task was good. If a team of managers sustain a business successfully, then they form a good management.

So for accomplishing success in our missions or tasks or projects or businesses, we need good managers to manage those. 

But the question is whether all people can be good managers always? Unfortunately, all are not good managers. Good managers seem to be a rare breed in the world today. Otherwise we would not have been encountering failed missions or tasks or businesses or projects very often around us!

I do not consider task masters who accomplish the work or task or business with apparent success for some time as good managers! They are clever pseudo managers with good knowledge and intelligence but with no ethics, character or honesty or compassion to other human beings. The success they seem to achieve are temporary in nature only to become huge failures at a later date! Their success is not sustainable! And non-sustainable success is no success at all!

It is possible to train or educate a person giving him or her some insight in to some qualities and skills that may prove beneficial for a person to become a good manager. But this alone need not make a person a good manager. Even people with no formal education also could be good managers! Management qualities are partially inherent and partially acquired by experience and observations.

Just as any person cannot be a good artist, just any person cannot be good manager. Management is essentially an art! It is the art of getting the resources optimally to accomplish the mission successfully. The resources are the people who do various kinds of works, the money, the materials, etc. Some observers often call the resources as the 3 M's (Men, Money and Materials).

In the resources, the men (and women) who form the work force are the most important factor. That is because the people are the only item that are living and have the ability to act independently with their own intelligence and thoughts.

Therefore, a good manager is the one who knows the art of making others work in unison for making the task a success. With the help of the people, the manager should get the best from the available money and materials.

For finishing the task successfully, it may be necessary to divide the main task in to many sub tasks and assign each of the sub tasks to the people so that each of those tasks are managed well. Thus, the people working for the manager for a particular task become associate or assistant managers for the sub tasks. The manager has to ensure that all the people in the team manage their own shows well towards the overall success of the main objective.

But how does the manager ensure that each of the people turn themselves to become good managers for their own tasks? It becomes a tricky job. The manager needs to delegate the task properly with due diligence! The right man for the right task will make things easy. Otherwise, the management becomes a mess! Indeed, this part is an art. The skill needed is the art of understanding people and the art of delegation of tasks to the right people.

Many people think it is a very simple thing. What is the difficulty in assigning work to the people? I agree, there is not much difficulty for that. The difficulty is in getting the work successfully accomplished. When the work or tasks are assigned the wrong manner, the overall task would never get managed. It will not be a success!

A manager is a person who knows the strengths, weaknesses, character and other personality traits of the people well and possess the leadership and authority to assign work honestly according to his assessments. Not only he knows the art of delegation, but also knows how effectively he communicates with his team.

While he possesses the power to interfere in the sub-tasks as assigned to the individuals in his team, he avoids using that power. A driver can use the control pedals and steering of a car the way he likes. But when he does that too often without any justification, he becomes a bad driver! Similarly, a manager who often interferes with the assigned tasks of his team members is a bad manager! A bad manager can lead the organization to mismanagement accidents that could be fatal to the organization!

There are many more things in management. Only good managers can find and judge other good managers. Someone who assigns the management task to any Tom, Dick and Harry can't be a good manager himself! 

Assigning tasks to the right people is the prime task in management. If this is done, success is at least half accomplished!

People say, India is a country which is poorly managed. If it is so, the reason is very simple. 

The people of India lack managerial abilities. They do not recognize the importance of assigning the right people for the right job! Perhaps they also do not understand the technique of judging and picking the right people or the good managers for the various managerial tasks of the nation!

It is my simple opinion. I am not sure what you might say! 

What Could Be the Best Criteria to Identify the Best Corporate Entities?

Before I try to find the possible answers to the title question above, I think I should find out the most appropriate answer to another question:

What should be the most important purpose of my life in this world?

Live in Style? Is it the Purpose of Life?

Photo Courtsey: Sunil Mathew

I have been pondering over that question for quite some time.

I have been hearing and reading what others say about it.

Some say: Make money and enjoy as much (before you die, of course!)

Some say: Do some thing so that you become a well known celebrity! In other words, by this they mean acquiring the attention and admiration of others by showcasing some of their abilities by which they can project themselves as superior to others in some manner! The inferior souls then would be so willing to flock behind them to be pushed to fame, political power and all the associated material enjoyments! 

Fame to celebrity status can be due to some really good qualities and also on account of clever crookedness. Either way such celebrities get immature followers who would be all willing to surrender their self to their heroes and heroines.

So some keep trying to become celebrities and to acquire as many followers as they could while some others get enjoyment by being followers of their demigods. 

Then there are the neutral ones who do not come under any of the above. They live either blissfully ignorant of their lives or as silent saints contented with the life as it is!

And yet another group too exist. They are the disgruntled ones. They are with malice towards one and all. They are born to criticize and fight every other. They exist to add pain and suffering to all others and also to themselves! 

All the above are realities of human life. You cannot deny it. 

But then, being human is something unique and special. A human life is superior than all other types of material life forms that our world has. At least that is what I now believe.

And that superiority comes from our multifarious abilities of language, creativity, intelligence and other body and mind capacities. But on the top of all these are our unique capability of Creator (God) consciousness and our ability to love and help others.

Inherently we are conscious of good and bad , whether we actually act accordingly or not. And we have the natural tendency to do good and be of help to others without expecting anything in return, though all of us may not be like that always. And that comes from our God consciousness!

But many of us do not nurture our God consciousness and the divine qualities of goodness that are within us. As a result we fail to live as real humans!

Our prime mission in this human life, in my opinion, is to enhance our real human character and values that are inherent within us.

And it is not difficult to accomplish that mission. Be aware of God always as our Creator and source of life, while recognizing all other humans as equally receiving the same unique gift of life from God. 

In simple terms that amounts to loving God the Creator and also His creations just for the great wisdom of God in everything. When we realize the greatness of Our Creator God, then and there we start realizing our limitations.

When we begin to have that great realization, we begin to forgo our egos and our pride in our own greatness. When we see another human, we start seeing the wisdom of God reflecting in some way. We then automatically learn to love God and live our lives in goodness. Our world will then begin to change as a place of divinity!

Now the best corporate entities or companies are those formed of humans with more and more divine qualities.

For such companies, the prime motto or objective is not enhancing profits by cleverly depriving others in some clandestine manner.

If they happen to enhance profits to disproportionate levels, they use their intelligence to remove such anomalies and to carry on with their work in a balanced manner that benefits all.

They work to propagate happiness to all, their customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, the government and the general public. 

They embrace values and character while discarding selfishness and the urge to control others.

They should be doing business as a noble, sustainable service to others and our planet.

Unfortunately, the majority of us are yet to acquire and nurture our divine qualities of goodness. Till such time, we would not be in a position to discard our fears, anxieties, envies, greed and such other negative qualities. 

When such among us are predominating our business entities, our companies cannot have the real human character. Profit and growth in profit  would predominate our criteria to judge our best corporate entities!

Whether it is good or bad, you should try to analyze yourself.

Two Plus Two Need Not Be Four For Everyone Now!

Long ago, when I began my professional career as an engineer in a large iron and steel company, I was posted as the engineer in charge of a water utility plant of the steel plant's captive thermal power plant.

When I joined, the plant facility was a new one under erection expected, to be commissioned for production in a few months time.

As a fresh chemical engineering post graduate from a premier engineering university of India, my knowledge in the practice of engineering was practically zero. While being engineering students in the graduation and post graduation levels, we were exposed to several units of study materials from which we acquired bits and pieces of information and knowledge in varying degrees. Our lecturers and professors were mostly good in making us exposed to some aspects of the information already available in the form of internationally accepted text books. They also made us undertake various practicals in well defined pedagogy. The authorized university authorities under the authority given to them by the statutes, tested us as per their procedures and awarded us the degree certificates which essentially provided us the license to get employed as engineers.

But each one of us understood engineering in a different manner. It was not a simple 'two plus two equals four' for us. Each one of us would be going to realize engineering differently in our later years!

Unfortunately or fortunately, those like us who started their profession as working engineers also realized the content of engineering differently in accordance with the work culture and work requirements of their own working areas. In other words, every one understood two plus two of engineering differently! Perhaps in the later years some of our kind added our own concepts and ideas and contributed to the creation of several pieces of non material creations on the face our earth. But we could never agree to any thing that we created as perfect or defect free!

Extending that analysis further down, I would be able to prove some thing which many of my readers might not agree. In my humble opinion, such a thing happens because of our imperfection of mind development.

We keep arguing over our discoveries, theories, inventions and ideas. We argue, because we cannot possibly agree on anything as perfectly alright. 

Let me now come back to the story of my initial days of work as the plant operation and maintenance engineer-in-charge. 

I found that there were several imperfections and defects in the plant which was planned by a reputed engineering consultancy group and executed by a reputed EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contracting company. Those imperfections existed in my view point. Had those imperfections were not there, the plant would have been easier for my group to operate and maintain. That was what I thought. Those imperfections were going to have much headache to me in the future. I remember my struggles with the consultants and the EPC contractors to rectify the issues which were defects in my view point. I could only succeed partially.

Some years later, my role changed. From the role of a plant operation and maintenance in-charge, I was made as a plant design engineer in our company's in house project engineering consultancy group. By chance, I got an opportunity to independently plan another new water utility plant for another purpose in the steel plant. 

I took all the pains to plan one of the best possible plant design which did not cause any of the problems that I faced. The plant was erected and commissioned smoothly and was handed over to a different group of plant operation and maintenance engineers. I was expecting the new custodians of the plant giving me the praise for giving them such a wonderfully designed plant.

I was wrong. The new custodian engineers of this plant expected the plant to be in a different way than what I thought. There was no logic in what they were demanding according to my thoughts. Obviously, when I honestly considered two plus two as four in this case, my counterparts on the other side were not agreeing! 

All of us find these kinds of conflicts every where in our day to day life. 

We find it in hour families. The wife may not agree with the husband's idea or vice versa. When ideas and opinions do not match, it becomes a potential source for conflicts and might develop in to full scale aggravations. 

Adolescents and youths would seldom agree with their parents' ideas because of the wide difference in the maturity levels that exist between them.

In an evolutionary world of progress like that of our earth, each and every person exist with varying degrees of perfection levels. All are imperfect with regard to knowledge, experience, wisdom and maturity. We can say that all exist under varying degrees of perfection or imperfection.

God is the only one who is eternally and infinitely perfect.  God cannot personally know imperfection as His own experience. Experiencing the outcomes of imperfection is left to us!

In a way, we are better than God in this context, because we have the experience of imperfection while God does not have it directly. God has to gain the experience of imperfection from us.

In fact, God shares the consciousness of all the experience of imperfectness of all the struggling men and women of not only earth, but also of all the evolutionary worlds of the universe. 

God desires that all those imperfect evolutionary beings like us gradually mature to attain perfection through life experiences and become true sons and daughters of God who are fully willing to live according to the will of God.

Learning by experimentation and experience is better than learning by other means. We learn the comparative desirability of beauty when we are able to recognize ugliness. We understand the desirability of good when evil also is experienced.

God actually participates and is in touch with all human beings in their struggle of attaining perfection through their life experiences under situations of imperfections. We may not be aware of His presence within us.

Human limitations which are the causes of potential evil should not be construed as part of the divine nature God.

Evil is a potential outcome of the imperfections of free-willed beings like we humans. God does not cause evil nor He likes evil. 

Because of our misunderstandings arising out of our present imperfections, there is a possibility that we may attribute good and evil both as a result of God's will. 

If I say that is not the case, all of us are not going to agree anyway.

Because, there are many among us for whom two plus two is not four, yet. Till every one attains the peak practical level of knowledge and maturity, our problems of our own make, arising out of our misunderstandings will remain. And we keep on experiencing the contrasts of good and evil to conclude the desirability of good over evil, perhaps at some distant future! 

Narrow Minded People Will Not Allow the Society to Prosper!

A view of the War Memorial Plaza  of 
Malaysia- a prosperous Asian nation with 
a high human development index

What is the difference between broadminded people and narrow minded people? 

Broadminded people have the following characteristics:

They are open to new ideas. They are keen to know more about others. They are willing to listen to find out their own weaknesses and willing to correct it willfully with conscious efforts.

Normally they become more balanced and matured as they gain more and more life experiences. 

They wholeheartedly encourage others to do good deeds and are willing to provide good and impartial advice to others when they are approached. As they grow up, they discard negative qualities such as envy, anger, anxiety, intolerance, prejudice, etc. As they grow, they acquire more and more knowledge and are keen to learn all the time. As they gain more and more knowledge, they understand their ignorance more and aspire to learn more.

Since they are broadminded, they become more and more aware about the true nature of God, regardless of their traditional learning or religious upbringing. They might also realize the purpose of life and may adopt a life style that is simple and humble regardless of their position or status.

They become more cultured and civilized with experience of life. They would never use their power, wealth and position for satisfying their own vested interests. 

They give first priority to the society than to their own personal interests. 

They would never argue with others for forcing their ideas or viewpoints. 

They would not get angry with others who are not accepting their view points or ideas, but my have sympathy for those ignorant fellows around them who have mind capacities much lower.

It is not difficult for them to understand good from bad and with time they develop the technique of appreciating good in every thing and in every deeds. They tend to become true mentors for those who are in their team.

They enjoy working, but they are not workaholics. They understand the importance of both work and leisure. They are truly balanced and are not addicted to any one particular thing always!

Broadminded people would prove to be very good leaders. But they would not adopt clever and cunning ways to climb up to leadership positions!

Since they have not closed their minds for new thoughts and ideas, they are bound to become more and more experienced with life experiences. Therefore they are the ones who lead the society towards cultural advancements, progress and development.

Broadminded people like reading , listening and learning the ideas and thoughts of others. They also like to share their thoughts with others. But they dislike to force their thoughts on others and also would not normally get carried away by the false teachings of others. Truly, many of them develop the capability to discern the right from the wrong over the years!

Children of broadminded people may be like the children of every one else during their initial years of growth. But later in their adulthood, these children do exhibit good qualities of their broadminded parent.

Broadminded nature is both inherent and acquired. Some people may have inherently better chances for developing a broadminded nature than others. But broadminded nature could also be nurtured and developed by conscious efforts. Education imparted by broadminded teachers help children to develop this quality, even when they have little of it inherently with them.

A society with more and more broadminded people would become more and more developed socially. The human development index of such societies would be higher than those societies where such individuals are a minority.

All the above said qualities are just the reverse for the narrow minded people, in varying degrees. Narrow minded people are those having inherent narrow mindedness and those who did not get the right kind of education to remove their inherent negative qualities.

Narrow minded children educated and trained by narrow minded teachers develop as hardcore narrow minded people in the society. They are full of jealousy, anger and envy towards all those who appear as successful in life. They cannot tolerate beauty anywhere. They keep devising ways and means to destroy good everywhere due to their jealousy. 

Narrow minded people are suspicious of others. Fear, anxiety, envy and anger keep fuming within them destroying their mind and body slowly. They keep their minds closed that they fail to learn from others. A few of them become dangerous extremists who get sadistic pleasure in inflicting injuries to others.

They are prone to develop false ideas and thoughts. It is easy for those cleverer among them to make them their blind followers. 

The more narrow minded people in a society, the more it tend to become underdeveloped socially. The narrow minded ones keep negating the good works of the broadminded people!

It is possible for narrow minded people to discard their negative qualities to some extent provided they get proper education and training from broadminded teachers. It is possible for the society to reduce the number of narrow minded people by devising and implementing broadminded education system. Such societies and nations are likely to progress culturally and socially in a much faster pace.

Narrow minded people might adopt all clever tactics to get in to leadership positions. They aspire for leadership positions not for doing any good for the society, but for deriving sadistic pleasures by inflicting problems to others. Power positions and leadership for them are for their own self enjoyment. And that is what they perceive with their narrow minds! Narrow minded leaders are likely to make their societies and nations deprived of all good things and might even inflict greater damages and pain to all due to their narrow minded decisions and actions.

Organizations headed by narrow minded people might show apparent success for a short while. But such organizations are bound to prove as failures in the long run.

Your narrow minded relative or neighbor or colleague or even spouse would never be able to accept your success. They would never appreciate you or provide you any complementary support in your acts and thoughts. Instead, they keep pulling you down either directly or indirectly that you find it difficult to live in peace. On the other hand, had they been broadminded, you would have become a happy achiever! When every one like you become a happy achiever, your society naturally become one high in human development index.

It is a good idea to have an introspection to find whether you have any narrow mindedness in you. Though it is difficult for narrow minded people to get rid of this negative and destructive quality, by conscious and willful efforts much desirable could be achieved.

Remember, becoming a broadminded personality is one of the greatest achievements in human life. There are many inherent rewards, though they may not be directly discernible always. Broadminded persons are not like touch-me-not plants. They would not show sudden outbursts of joy or gloom because they are balanced and matured. But within their minds they are loving and with full of peace. Many of them acquire the good qualities of Character, Competency, Compassion and Courage (the 4-Cs) as they grow up in their life, unlike the narrow minded ones.

Now let me give some illustrations that give the nature of narrow mindedness and broad mindedness from real life experiences:

In a particular organization, this narrow minded person become overnight successful and becomes elevated to the position of the chief executive. He had inherent weaknesses in many fronts and since he was narrow minded, he was not able to realize his weaknesses. Over the years he became highly suspicious of others and had developed a grudge to all those around him because of his inferiority complex. He was anxious to demonstrate that he was better than others and was waiting for an opportunity to teach all those others who directly or indirectly ignored his presence in the organization. By his good fortune, he got a family mentor who could catapult him to higher career positions regardless of his inherent weaknesses. And thus he became the CEO. He did not waste time to fulfill his desires of teaching all those others some befitting lessons causing much distress and damage to the organization as a whole! Since he was narrow minded, it was difficult for him to understand his mistakes and follies!

Sometimes, in an organization (it could be even a government), the new incoming head of the organization, if he or she is narrow minded, would tend to become too pre-occupied with such actions that are predominantly with the intention to negate the work of his or her predecessor due to certain kind of grudge that they have developed due to their narrow minds! The society as a whole suffers on account of this.

In a privately developed apartment complex in India, the builders had built dwelling units of a few different sizes. The residents later formed the owners' association and registered a society for the purpose of managing the common interest affairs of the apartment complex. Some knowledgeable and broadminded individuals helped in making the most acceptable bylaws in accordance with the laws of the land. The bye-laws considered all owners equally and they did not make any differentiation among themselves on account of the size of the apartment they owned. The association carried out the management smoothly as there was no disagreement among them. However, soon a few narrow minded among the lot began to play their crooked activities. They started creating divisions among themselves by demanding a change in the bye-laws allowing differential treatments of the members according to the size of their dwelling units. The management of the common facilities of the apartment complex soon began to go haywire affecting all who lived there.

A young couple were happily married and both were having their own successful professional careers. If they are narrow minded, marital disharmony would begin to spoil their peace both at home and at their work place. In many cases, this situation might reach to such heights that either one of them (most likely the wife, if it is in India) may leave the job or they go for a divorce. Depending upon the degree of narrow mindedness, they develop varying degrees of animosities among themselves. If the family members too are narrow minded, the husband-wife dispute soon envelop a larger group of people!

The management board of a company wants to provide some good incentives to all its employees because the majority in the board are broadminded people. They are willing to spend a sum as high as 10% of their annual profits for this purpose. The board entrusts the CEO to work out the details. The CEO in turn sets up a committee of three headed by a narrow minded finance official for a detailed study and for recommendations. The committee, greatly influenced by its head, finally gives a recommendation that in the final analysis was more of a disincentive rather than any incentive to the employees. Here the head of the committee being narrow minded was ready to give up his own benefits. He disliked the idea of the majority of the employees getting some better benefits!

A private school run by a society floated by an Indian church soon became very famous attracting a huge rush of parents to get their children admitted in this school. Soon the society's accounts began to swell with huge money as the cost of running the school was much lower than the amount of fees collected from the students. The funds were so huge now that there was no problem for the school to extent better pay and perks to the teachers and the staff. They could now also hire the best teachers and enhance the infrastructural facilities. They are also in a position to provide fee concessions to a good number of deserving children or to institute various scholarships. But unfortunately, the management committee of the school comprised of narrow minded Christians who could never understand the broadminded teachings of Jesus. The school, obviously, could not make any further progress due to this narrow mindedness!

A man in Kerala lives by the side of a main road. He has more than half acres of land where his house is located. But his financial situation is not so good. A million rupees can make his financial problems vanish for ever. This fellow has a neighbor who is financially much better than him. But this neighbor of his is unable to buy a car and use it because he does not have a proper approach road to his house. For making an approach road, the first mentioned person has to allocate some of his land for that purpose which he had been denying for quite some time now. The richer one now has offered more than a million rupees for the one or two cent of land that the first person has to spare for widening the approach road to his house. But the first man is so narrow minded and adamant that he would not budge. He prefers not to take the money. For him, the neighbor using the car conveniently is a bigger problem than his own financial problems! He does not want to solve his own problems because it gives some advantage to his neighbor!

Take the cases of the Aranmula airport proposal or the proposed liquor ban of Kerala. These are also typical examples of narrow minds in action!

In short, the more the individuals in a society are narrow minded, the more it is difficult for the society to prosper! 

Would you like to share some of your views about this in this forum?

The Dalamatian Civilization: The First Civilization on Earth, Developed Under a Super Human Supervisory Team!

Some time ago I wrote about the origin of human beings on earth nearly a million years ago [BC 991474 to be precise!] and the first parents of human race were a pair of twins, one male and another female, now named to be known as Andon and Fonta.[ Read about the origin of the first humans in this blog] However, our human scientists have been arguing with their theories based on their analysis of fossils they had collected from here and there. According to them humans beings got evolved on earth some 200,000 years ago, while not so developed humanoids evolved some 2.5 million years ago. 

But human scientists are arguing with their theories and that are after all theories while what I have written was based on facts revealed by some immortal personalities who have been witnessing and supervising the human evolutionary progress. This too is some thing non digestible to the human scientists. [Read this wikipedia article about the scientific views about human evolution].

We cannot blame them because they can do their experiments only on observable things and evidences. They have not yet progressed to such levels that they are capable of conducting experiments on super material existences! Perhaps our scientists would agree to theorize on such phenomena in some later years so that super material phenomena too would become part of human scientific studies!  

Now, the descendants of Andon were the primitive peoples of earth called the Andonites.[Read more about Andon and Fonta in this Blog ] Andonites were the primitive tribals of earth, many of whom were not much developed than their animal cousins. Of course they had better developed abilities to live in a hostile environment than many of us now living in the 21st century.

In another blog I wrote about the evolution of the colored races of earth from the Andonites. This happened by another evolutionary change that occurred in the genetic structure in one family of the later day Andonites some half a million years ago. They are known as the Sangik races. [Read about the evolution of colored races on earth in this blog] This genetic mutation in the children happened in a much progressed human family living in the Indian sub continent somewhere near the present day Afghanistan. 

As per the universal plan of creation and development of human like beings in any planet in the universe, the creative agencies of God use the technique of controlled evolution. This is one of the technique adopted to get mighty future personalities of the universe who become perfect and mighty through varied life experiences from an initial weak and imperfect origin. In this process, there are also chances that the originally created human personality losing his or her individual existence. This happens when the individual is not careful enough to use his or her God given wisdom to live a life which is justifiable according to the universal laws of God. It is God's mandate that all humans created are inherently will creatures (living beings capable of taking their own decisions) and God or His agencies would not interfere with human will at any time!

But God has also mandated that human beings be given all assistance for their cultural progress at appropriate times by some of  those orders of beings who are more advanced in knowledge in a progressive manner matching with the evolutionary progress of human intellectual capacities. 

According to this plan, any evolutionary world in the universe similar to earth would get a super mortal ruler when the evolutionary primitive human beings multiply in population to a few million and when some of them are fully developed physically and biologically to grasp higher ideas. Though this super mortal ruler would be normally invisible to the humans, this ruler might use a group of advanced humans from other planets who lived justifiably and died but provided the opportunity to live again and advance their lives in some advanced form of living in some other advanced worlds. 

Accordingly, our earth also got its super mortal ruler some half-a-million years ago near about the times when the Sangik races evolved from the Andonites. This super mortal ruler of earth is an order of an intelligent non material being known as as Caligastia (this name is for our purpose of identification. Know more about the plans of God about evolutionary worlds in this blog ) 

Caligastia having a non material form is not visible to human visual senses and therefore there was a need to have some volunteers who are both visible to Caligastia and the humans to act as intermediaries between the new celestial ruler of earth and its evolutionary human tribes. These intermediaries by appearance had to look more or less similar to human beings and they should also had to be experienced with human nature. 

Thus such intermediaries in every evolutionary planet would be a group of volunteers drawn from a lot of one time humans who lived and died in some planets and had been successful to advance to a higher form of living in some other advanced worlds. 

Caligastia got 100 such volunteers to function as his staff. They are identified as the corporeal staff (aids with bodies similar to humans) of the celestial planetary ruler of earth. In fact they were 50 male-female couples who were given synthesized human bodies developed from the genetic cell plasm of some of the humans of earth living at that time. The work of de-materialized transfer of these volunteers and giving them human bodies were effected by various orders of living beings having requisite capabilities for doing such tasks.

Caligastia had also subordinates who were celestials of various orders invisible to humans. He and his subordinates established their headquarters in a region in Asia identified as Dalamatia ( the region now known as Mesopotamia)

The Celestials with the assistance of their intermediaries (the corporeal staff) began to select the Andonite and Sangik races of earth now in millions in the Asian African lands and began to train them in various fields of knowledge. For the earthly evolutionary humans, the corporeal staff of 100 were like gods as the latter did not die before them while the former died. The corporeal staff were supervising the humans of those days for many generations. These corporeal staff are also known as the Caligastia-One-Hundred.

The corporeal staff were divided into ten groups consisting of 5 couples selected by Caligastia, each group responsible for a special function. These ten groups were to train and teach the humans about various aspects of living such as the following:

1. The Council on Food and Materials- Leader Name, Ang

2. The Board of Animal Domestication and Utilization- Leader name, Bon

3. The Advisary Group on Predatory animals- Leader name, Dan

4. The Faculty of Knowledge Preservation and Dissemination- Leader name, Fad

5. The Commission on Industry and Trade- Leader name, Nod

6. The Teachers of Knowledge about God and Worship- Leader name, Hap

7. The Group on Health and Life- Leader name, Lut

8. The Council or Art and Science- Leader name, Mek

9. The Governors of Tribal Relations- Leader name, Tut

10 The Supreme Court of Racial Coordination- Leader name, Van

The Caligastia corporeal staff were in reality not humans of earth. They looked like any other Andonite and spoke their tribal language. But they were superior beings. They were intermediaries between invisible celestials representing the universe government of God and the evolutionary primitive humans. Some of the humans were having the potential to live again after death and progress in their life to become later day mighty celestial personalities of God in some other parts of the universe.

The corporeal staff members had the following special features or abilities:

1. They had dual body characteristics. They had human bodies with superior acquired mind qualities and capabilities. They could see and communicate with their celestial superiors as well as with the humans around them. The primitive humans also could see them and communicate with them.

2. Their bodies were not made by birth in the natural evolutionary manner, but were constructed by special techniques. They did not age or die as was the case with the humans. So the humans held them in high regard and revered them in awe.

3. They were one time humans in some other worlds similar to earth, but had died long before and survived their physical death to continue their lives in some other advanced form and were in the process of advancement towards attaining their mighty status before God. In fact they had survived seven stages of life after their material death and had acquired a status of citizenship in the headquarter world of about 619 planets including earth, called Jerusem.[ A real existence and not any myth!]

4. They were both male and females and were capable of reproducing other beings in their new existence as the corporeal staff of Caligastia on earth. But they were prevented from sexual reproduction. However, they were in a position to create a type of non material living beings by a different kind of mind or soul union. This way each couple of the corporeal staff became parents to 1000 non material beings now known as the primary midwayers of earth. These primary midwayers whose number is 50,000 are a permanent order of living beings of earth ever since they came into existence. They are not visible to humans under normal circumstances. [Know more about them in this blog which discussed about the reality of facts about ghosts]

5. They were one-time humans of some other material world such as earth and had acquired the immortal status  and had seven advanced life experiences before they became volunteer teachers to the ancient tribal humans of earth some 200,000 years ago. They had superior knowledge but they also knew the technique of slow and patient teaching techniques they should adopt for their earth pupils. They knew very well the dangers of forcible and fast teaching such as some impatient methods of curriculum loading being adopted by some modern public schools of the 20th and 21 centuries in some countries!

The following were some of the things that the ten groups taught the ancient people of earth through their leadership and training activities that went on for many centuries some 500,000 years ago which caused the first ever human civilization to take root, in and around the present day Mesopotamian region on earth, which is now designated as the Dalamatian civilization:

1. The people learnt to make neat and clean homes made of bricks. They learnt working with fire and to use fire for making various useful objects with clay and metals.

2. They were taught the importance of family and equality of men and women at work.

3. They were taught the importance of imparting education (transfer of knowledge and skills and thinking) to future generations.

4. They were taught about the concepts of God and the concepts of the non-human supreme nature of about the unseen God who is father of all.(the supreme father-Parampita and Supreme Spirit- Paramatma concepts)

5. They were taught about the seven fundamental moral laws that the Supreme Spirit Father God favors: These seven fundamental laws or moral commandments were:

- You shall not fear or serve any god but your Supreme Spirit Father (Parampita)
- You shall not disobey the representatives of the Supreme Spirit Father on earth
- You shall not tell a lie when called for by the judges of the people
- You shall not kill any men, women or children
- You shall not steal any thing of others
- You shall not desire or touch the wife of others
- You shall not show disrespect to your parents or elders.

The Dalamatian culture went on undisturbed for more than 300,000 years slowly and effectively. But some 200,000 years ago some unfortunate things happened that caused earth a disturbed, spoiled and confused world. And that was when Caligastia decided to deviate from the mandates of the universal divine administration of Paramatma  in support of his boss who was the celestial system administrator ruling from the heavenly headquarter world of Jerusem at that time. [I had discussed about this misfortune that struck earth some 200,000 years ago in this blog]

The Dalamation civilization of earth began to show effects of corruption and other evil practices there after and it began to disintegrate beyond recognition. Earth fell into a long era of cultural decadency.

Out of the ten groups of corporeal staff of Caligastia, a good majority decided to follow Caligastia either wholeheartedly or  with some initial reluctance. The following were the ones that shifted their alliance from the universal administration of God to the local independent rule as declared by Caligastia:

1. The Board of animal husbandry lead by Bon the group on predatory animals led by Dan
2. Council of industry and trade lead by Nod
3.  The group responsible for health led by Lut
4. The group for tribal welfare and relations lead by Tut
5.  Few members from the group of food and food materials

In all sixty of the 100 remained loyal to Caligastia while forty under the leadership of Van remained loyal to the Universal administration of God. 

The group led by Van remained on earth for many thousand years till the arrival of Adam and Eve some 38,000 years ago. This group worked hard to preserve the knowledge and worship of Paramatma and the original moral code from not getting lost entirely from earth. This group were facilitated to return back to the heavenly abode from where they first took up the assignment to become earth volunteers.

The rebel sixty corporeal staff who remained as supporters of the rebel celestial ruler of earth, Caligastia were under the leadership of Nod. Since they rebelled, their power to live indefinitely had lost and they were degraded to the status of mortal humans of earth. Caligastia had known the fate of these super humans. Yet he advised them to resort to sexual reproduction to increase their numbers. And the mortal descendants they had ever since were the people called the Nodites. The Nodites had the privilege of knowing many superior knowledge from their one time super human parents. All the rebel corporeal staff members including Nod and their mortal descendants faced permanent death eventually on earth.

A large group of the the primary midwayers (non material, immortal children of the corporeal staff present on earth) and a large group of secondary midwayers (who came into existence much later) became followers of the local celestial ruler of earth. So also a large group of celestial assistants originally present with Caligastia). This group of celestials and their celestial head, Caligastia, are still living on earth invisible to humans. However, since they have gone against the source of universal life and energy, they would face eventual end of their lives in the course of time in the future.

Earth became isolated from the universal administration of God ever since. However the universal administration of God is patiently watching over the developments and intervening in some limited manner in the affairs of earth from time to time. 

About 38000 years ago, Adam and Eve were sent to earth to save earth from total decadency. They could not succeed in their mission fully [Read about it in this blog about the mission of Adam and Eve] Even the super mortal material beings, Adam and Eve fell in to the clever trap of Caligastia and spoiled the plan of the universal administration to improve the spoiled situation of earth. Adam and Eve too had to face death on earth. They were supposed to live for many many centuries as the visible rulers and parental guides to all humans till the humans advanced to highest levels of maturity and knowledge. But that did not happen that way. Before he died Adam married 1682 Nodite women and the progeny he got through these women later became the Andite race of earth.

The universal administration curtailed many powers of Caligastia about 2000 years ago and appointed some celestial receivers to look after the affairs of earth in some limited manner ever since. However, earth is still not connected back to the universal administration of God. 

It is expected that it would happen in the near future within a few centuries.Before that major catastrophe  are likely as a result of the deeds of evil minded people whose numbers are rising. Because the universal law of God reminds that the final outcome of evil any where is destruction! All people who resort to evil practices knowingly without remorse would end up in permanent destruction without any possibility of their souls surviving death or they getting the chance of their personalities to survive for future adventures through the future ages. Their fate would be like the plants and animals which decorated the land surfaces for some short duration!

Remember, the Dalamatian civilization which continued for 300,000 years on earth got wiped out without any traces from the face of earth. So also all the other civilizations. Because all those civilizations adopted great errors and evils. They followed a culture of good and bad at the same time. And the divine mandate is that good and bad cannot go simultaneously for long.

On the other hand, when people learn to adopt good wholeheartedly, their earthly civilization would progress immensely and earth would achieve the highest civilization possible called the civilization of light and life much faster. All people who willfully decided to be good and follow good would proceed to their higher levels of existence  to become experienced and mighty personalities of the future. They would take up greater and challenging assignments of various types in the innumerable other worlds in the universal administration of God.

One day such individuals are going to become Mighty Messengers of God with such powers and capabilities that they can never imagine or comprehend now.

Is it not something great?

[Based on the teachings of the Urantia Book]

   

News and Media : Perpetuating Pessimism in the Guise of Creating Corrective Awareness !

Of late I am losing my interest in watching the News TV channels and reading the Print Media. I do not know the situation in other countries. But in this great nation of so-called pacifists, veggies and 'Ahimsawaadis' (proponents of non-violence) violence, cruelty and hatred are getting undue importance in the news media in recent years. 

It is a time of making material business benefits from even those activities that used to be considered semi-divine in some years ago. Yes, I am talking about journalism, teaching, preaching, healing and the like. 

Creating awareness about the evils of the society for possible eradication of such things in future may be a good idea. To that extent, propagating news about evil happenings might be tolerable.

But any thing in excess is bad and poisonous. Anything without applying the wise balance of mind is destructive.

'Breaking News' in red has become a continuous feature in the Indian TV channels that I am not able to differentiate the 'break' or the 'news'. And in reality, these neo news editors of these countless channels are breaking the heads of the viewers with these gimmicks which has lost its ingenuity. 

Most of the media men and women associated with the so-called national news channels seem to  loiter around the metros only with their cameras and microphones to look for road accidents and such human mishaps and disasters to be beamed to the millions of Indian households with such absurd impunity. 

They have now made the unfortunate sorrows of humans beings as a means of making money. They break the pathetic human agonies in to millisecond clips and beam it 24x7 with those ad-clips that run in to hours!

What kind of a media journalism is this ?

They have to be practical and cost effective, they might say. They give what the public want to see and listen. They go by the viewership statistics. News about bad things and evil incidences are what thrills the Indian viewers, they argue ! 

That reminds me of another story. Decades ago, a south Indian community in a central Indian city made repeated appeals to the railway ministry for linking their city with their south Indian home state with the convenience of a direct express train service. But the railway babus repeatedly rejected their genuine plea on the ground that their records showed no passenger demand on this route.How could that happen when there was no direct train service ? From where these babus could have got the relevant data of passenger load ?

So, when the TV fellows keep showing the those head breaking news of nonsense always, there is no escape for the viewers. The viewership would be cent percent on news highlighting the evil character of the Indian society. 

If feature films depicting evil stories are going to influence the minds of the majority people, especially the children,  as told by some of the wise social activists and psychologists, then the evil news propagation day and night would do more harm than that. 

Why do these media men and women flock around some peculiar characters associated with politics, cinema and sports and try to make them celebrities ? Are they getting some indirect benefits for glamorizing such men and women? Media plays to make some people celebrities and celebrities add to media popularity. It is a double benefit game. Only the common people are be-fooled in this game!

Media is called the fourth estate (read estate of power!) in a democracy. Yes, they are the ones who make and break deals. They are the ones who think that they are above all. They can break and make governments. Is it not something great ? 

But in the process they seem to forget their duties and responsibilities to the society. Just as the people who form the courts, the people who are the eyes and ears of the society also have to work with some self imposed ethics and codes of conduct. If not they are bound to perish some day together with the society they belong.

Why are they not projecting the good things from their society ? Why don't they project those good things with prominence ? Human achievements are much more desirable to be projected than human disappointments and troubles. The former propagates positive energy and helps in positive progress. The latter is negative energy that destroys!

Let us hope that our media men and women come out of their biasing influences and learn to do their duties and responsibilities the way it should be ! 

Let me conclude this by quoting an admonition to mankind from the superhuman authors of my favorite book of life guidance:

"As you view the world, remember that the black patches of evil which you see are shown against a white background of ultimate good. You do not view merely white patches of good which show up miserably against a black background of evil.

When there is so much good truth to publish and proclaim, why should men dwell so much upon the evil in the world just because it appears to be a fact? The beauties of the spiritual values of truth are more pleasurable and uplifting than  the phenomenon of evil." 

Why Is It Difficult To Follow the Good Way of Living on Earth Now ?

Before trying to answer this question, I would like to refresh your thoughts on the well known definitions of good and bad.

A good way of living, in my opinion, more or less proceeds  with the acknowledgement of the following:

1. Recognizing the fact that there is a God, the Supreme Creator of the Universe, who is to be revered and remembered always because our life and existence depend on God. The life and the personality which make us what we are, could not have been possible without God, the Supreme Source of all kinds of energy, mind and matter in this universe. Since, the all powerful God has  created such lowly creations like we  human beings , there is all possibility that He has created or caused the creation of various other orders of  intelligent beings of varying powers and capacities for various functions concerned with the vast administration of the vast universe that we have either known or not known yet.

2. Recognizing the fact that our fellow beings on earth being creations of God are our own blood relations or brothers and sisters connected to us through God. Hence we need to love God and our love to God should reflect through our love to our fellow beings, fully acknowledging the fact that our brothers and sisters may not reciprocate our love and concern in the same manner and that is due to the prevalence of ignorance.

3. Recognizing the fact that while we all have varying abilities, activities and responsibilities to perform from time to time, these do not make us superior or inferior to any one and hence we should always be considerate to our fellow beings and never ever try to deprive others of their rights. Each and every one of us is a servant to every other in some way or the other.

4. Recognizing the fact that we have God given abilities and intelligence, in varying degrees. Our intelligence and ability must be utilized to make continuous improvements not only to our physical needs but also to the needs of our minds for living a harmonious life in this world including enjoyment of all reasonable joys and pleasures that God has provided us on this earth.

5. Recognizing the fact that while wealth and power to accomplish many things may be be acquired  in this life, these special privileges should be utilized with care and responsibility.

6. Recognizing the fact that the life in this world is not an end to itself and may proceed uninterrupted in much more advanced and intelligent manner with our individual personality retained intact, provided we are humble enough to listen , recognize and proceed as per the feeble directions that come from God as received in our minds that we have deliberately made receptive to tune in to such directions.

7. Recognizing the fact that harsh realities and problems that bring much pain to body and mind are unavoidable in an imperfect world like ours and such unpleasant realities of life are not necessarily inflicted as a result of any wrath from God, but due to certain violations of universe rules by individuals who chose to follow a life not according to the will of God. Though God has the power to eliminate such problems, in His wisdom He has not so far decided to act against it and we are not to question the wisdom of God in such matters.

8. Recognizing the fact that we have to nurture our  God given qualities of curiosity, innovation, wisdom, doing good and seeking God to higher levels than what were inherently with us.

On the other hand a bad way of living proceeds in the following manner :

1. Not really believing in the existence of a Supreme God or not really concerned with the existence of such a Supreme Being while considering any one who is capable of fulfilling any kind of desires to give some degree of satisfaction to be revered , respected or even worshipped as god, which means a kind of refusal of acceptance of the invisible First Cause and Centre of Everything in the Universe.

2. Behaving as if power and wealth are for fulfilment of self satisfaction with no concern for fellow beings.

3. Believing that those who do not have power and wealth exist for the purpose of doing slavery for those who have it.

4. Believing that might is right or letting a greedy nature to overpower all acts making one too selfish.

5. Enjoying sadism or have a desire to see others suffer or feel happy when others suffer.

6. Enjoying life while cunningly trouble others or feeling unconcerned with the problems of others; believing that life is short and enjoying it as much as possible at whatever cost is okay.

7. Be passive and not inclined to resist bad or support good and live a life of fulfilling self interests only.

8. Having an innate desire to control others and be like a worshipful god.

Now coming to the pertinent question: why is it difficult to follow a good way of living on earth now ?

The answer that I have found for this question is some thing as below:

As a creative head of the universe, God has created both living and non living beings and materials of innumerable kinds and types. The living beings so created are with varying degrees of intelligence which include perfect beings, imperfect beings and beings which are created imperfect but are capable of progressing towards perfection. 

God has also created material abodes or worlds such as earth for the living beings to live and do their activities. There are worlds which are made perfect in the beginning itself and there are worlds which are made through a long process of evolutionary development and all worlds are made up of some kind of materials, not necessarily the materials that our earth is made of. 

All living beings have some kind of bodies and the type of bodies differ in different orders of living beings. Imperfect and progressive living beings have imperfect bodies made of lower level materials. But advanced kinds and perfect living beings have bodies made of super materials or materials which are beyond the normal materials that we in earth know about. Super material bodies do not elicit any response in the sensory mechanisms of our materials bodies and hence we are unable to feel their form or existence under normal circumstances. Similarly, the worlds where other living beings live exist at far distances of hundreds and thousands of light years from our earth that we are unable to know much about them using our present day scientific exploration techniques.

Why did God made all these things like this is a matter of the supreme wisdom of God. But God has some purpose and plans for everything which may not be comprehensible to every one of us due to our limitations of mind capacity to know and understand.

However, God has given us the capacity to make our world towards more and more perfection. God has also given us the fullest liberty for using our creativity and the freedom to take all decisions of life. We are at full liberty to believe in God or not to believe in Him. All necessary intelligence is given for this purpose, though in varying degrees.

To chose good or bad is within our control and God has determined not to interfere with that, though He might occasionally give us some clues or guidance if only we are willing to take note and act on it.

Just as there are many human beings who prefer a bad way of life for its immediate or apparent benefits, there also exists invisible beings who are imperfect but are superior to human beings in certain abilities and mind capacities. But some of these superior but imperfect non material beings could be similar to some human beings who find pleasure in doing evil or bad things. These invisible and intelligent living beings also exist in this universe here and there including our earth. However their superhuman abilities in no way make them equivalent to God. They are simply superior cousins of human beings and could use their free will choices to follow evil just as similar minded human beings. However certain invisible acts of these imperfect superhuman beings could sometimes cause some human beings to get their wisdom and logic corrupted and to believe untruths as truths or doing evil acts assuming those as right.

For example, people who are bad or doing evil things might become materially prosperous and appear as successful to others making the latter to believe that such acts of evil or people who do such things are blessed by God.

But God never permits evil nor favors evil. It is simply our delusion that we understand it that way!

It becomes very difficult for persons who are not so careful to miss the hidden dangers of following bad.

Such observations could also cause many of us in believing in the non-existence of God. Many are forced to accept a logic that is clearly atheistic because their logical deductions and conclusions from limited observations and experiences of this world in a way give them ample opportunities to think that they are right.

But if you observe closely for a longer period, you might also observe some pathetic downfalls some of them have faced on account of their own acts. It is not wise to consider those downfalls as wrath of God, but it could be considered as a result of the violations of the universal laws of God.

The apparent delay that we perceive in getting the evil doers punished by God may also cause one not to believe in the existence of God. This happens because we tend to consider the Supreme God as similar to us in thoughts and actions and we cannot possibly comprehend an infinite God and His wisdom with our finite minds.

Because of the limitations of the finite logic of some human beings, they cannot perceive the assurance of God about the possibility of an everlasting life even after material death for all human beings who follow and do good under given circumstances honestly. This too may result in many human beings choosing evil ways of life and departing away from things which are inherently good and godly. Thus they may forfeit their once-in-a-life-time opportunity to enter into a continuing process of progress and adventure which involves cycles of life and life translations in many other worlds without losing their individuality and the opportunity to transform to a perfected being having a never ending life and a high degree of life experiences. 

So, more than the temporal downfall or cessation of material life that those bad guys faced, it would be another application of the universal law of God that could make them earn the sympathies of the good ones. These bad guys would be no more living while their not-so-materially-prosperous counter parts who chose to live a humble life in accordance with the will of God would survive death with their personality intact. Those surviving earthly deaths would realize about the fate of their earthly fellows who were too prosperous for some short years of their living on earth but failed in retaining their precious lives intact! 

Being good and surviving death, the good ones would feel sorry for the bad ones. The bad and evil ones could not ensure perpetuation of their evil happiness for ever! It was too short lived an affair on earth.

How could they ?

They kept rejecting the possibility of the universal rule of a sovereign God whose laws are perfect and unchanging and they could never use their brains to find those clear evidences that have been all around them !

Just consider this :

Hundreds of people keep visiting this site every day but very few of them try to read blogs like this even when the majority of my blogs are on similar topics.

But only a minuscule of my readers are attracted to such topics ! Their inherent curiosity and anxieties are directed towards matters which are not too important, in my opinion.

When people go after silly things leaving precious things, when people go to chose evil things rejecting good and when people are more concerned about this short earthly life than the possibility of a wonderful everlasting life, I feel sorry for them.

When I find more and more of the so-called spiritual gurus and high priests also of that kind, I feel all the more sorry for the current generation. 

How sad !

[*Based on the revelatory celestial guidance given in the Urantia Book]

[Please also take some time to come back and read my previous  blogs and blogs on other topics as well. You can reach to those by clicking the links in this page. I would be happy if you take some time to express your views using the comments facility down below. Please  use the same comment facility to interact with me for any doubts or clarifications that you might have. Here is the page link which gives the   list of all my blogs  where you can open all my blog titles.]