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?

What Do I Expect From the New Central Government of India to be Formed in May 2014?

Media men and women of India have been  chasing the common men and women on the streets for the last many days with their microphones and camcorders for capturing  the latter's voices on their expectations from the politicians who would get elected to form the national government shortly. 

The folks on the streets may not have high aspirations from any government because that is what time has taught them. Yet, they are too enthusiastic about the general elections and are eagerly siding with some party as their own this time. Some of them might even risk their lives for their preferred parties and their preferred candidates even while they know that their support would not give them any real or lasting benefits. For that matter they might even do the same for their favorite cricketer or film star! It is like being in a big game and elections in a democracy are indeed big games that some people play and want to play at the cost of the majority whose roles end the moment after they return from the polling booths.

And there also exist a large group of people who are neither any party members, candidates or their near and dear ones and also not the enthusiastic voter who support and vote for the sake of getting the thrill of being in a contest. And they are the people like me, who are merely silent observers who may or may not go for voting realizing pretty well that their votes and opinions make no difference to any one even while some pseudo intellectuals preach otherwise! They are knowledgeable and responsible citizens who are concerned with their nation's progress, development and governance but are shy to raise their voices or try to assert themselves because experience has made them realize the folly of their gentlemanly behavior among the majority who have no such self imposed restrictions!

Being a wise and gentle person having some good human nature is not some thing that could draw some regard and respect from those who haven't acquired these qualities yet. A man who stands for principles and ethics cannot be a political leader who could win the confidence of the majority people of the present day. He or she could be considered as a weakling who could not be depended upon. What the people of the present day want is a leader who would not hesitate to assert his authority to have his way. If it hurts the people, they might moan, but yet they might feel proud of their authoritative leader. A circus lion has the strength to tear its trainer, but it won't do it so long as the induced fear resides in its mind. Common people are like such lions! The lion in the circus cage would be happy if it gets its meat and the cage floor to sleep and it won't mind those occasional lashes from the trainer!

The political leaders are like those circus trainers. They know pretty well to engage their caged lions dance to the tunes of the circus band! They know pretty well about the needs of their caged lions and the lions would sleep for hours in the cage if they are not fed well. If they roar in protest, those whips are sufficient to keep them under command. 

So what do I expect from the new government of India? If I am like the circus lion, what I expect is nothing to be elaborated much.

If I am like one of those lions in the wild, perhaps I may expect not to be caged just as those other lions who are there. Better hide away from the circus trainers!

I do not want to be either way. I do not also want that the political leaders to be like those circus trainers.

I want to live like a human being in this country. I also want the political leaders who form the central government to be like human beings and facilitate people like me to live like human beings. And not exist like those caged lions!

Why do Differences in Opinions and Viewpoints Happen in People?

Have you ever thought of this?

Why is it that we always find some people against our ideas while a few others might be supporting those very same ideas?

Whether you thought about it or not, I have been thinking about this for quite some time.

Differences of opinions, ideas, viewpoints and attitudes create conflicts among people.

And conflicts help a few people to gain superiority over other people for some time.  But the superiority so gained does not last for a long duration!

Differences of opinions among people of advanced maturity levels would not cause personal enmities, but that is not the case with people of inferior mind capacities. People of inferior mind capacities are more likely to have inferiority complexes and higher egos that get instigated to violent fury when they are contradicted.

Thus, differences in ideas cause conflicts among people with immature minds.

Now the question is why do these differences in ideas or opinions take place among individuals?

That is because of the varying intellectual capacities of people to learn, understand and comprehend.

Due to various reasons, human beings are not borne with the same mind capacities.

Intellectual capacities of all people are different. 

Thus, the ability of people to learn and understand is different.

While some people can learn a language or  science too quickly, for some others it may take much more time. And for a few others, it may not be possible at all however hard they try. 

Modern psycho-analysts have devised a test to measure this ability which is known as the intelligence quotient (IQ) test. Since these psycho-analysts themselves are individuals with varying mind capacities, it may not be wise to think that the IQ test that we have today is something perfect.

Again, people get varying life exposures to learn many things in life and their life experiences and learning opportunities are different. Thus two individuals having more or less the same IQ levels living in two different conditions will develop their individual personalities with varying levels of understanding. Their individual learning, memories and understanding would further knit together to form their unique personality characterized by their own thoughts and interpretations.

Learning potentials and capacities of people for various kinds of skills are also different. Thus individuals are different with regard to their skills and talents. Some are good in literature and language, some are good in mathematics and physical sciences, some are good in life sciences, some are good in geography and history, some are good in creativity, some in logic and reasoning, etc. A good majority have only skills for physical labor and not much intellectual abilities for mental works!

In this kind of a situation, it is very difficult to predict what two individuals gain when they are receiving the same kind of inputs. Their responses to the same inputs also may not be the same as they process and perceive the inputs differently.

It is easier to make this explained to people who have learnt arithmetic and are reasonably good in additions and subtractions. So all individuals who have learnt arithmetic perfectly would agree that 2+2=4. There would not be any differences of opinion among them with regard to this. They would all agree to this as they all have perfectly understood this arithmetic. But even in this case, an individual who has not perfectly learnt this arithmetic can disagree with the others.

In real life, the situations are more complex than this arithmetic. Understanding levels are much more complex and varying among individuals.

Even some one reading this article may not agree with me, if his level of understanding is different than mine. For that matter, many in this world do not have the capacity to read this even!

Our world unfortunately has been developing unevenly for millions of years. And human beings are under varying levels of perfection and maturity. People who have attained higher levels of mind capacities are a big minority. Thus the majority of the people of this world are likely to disagree with the opinions and advises of the advanced minds of their kind. The immature people may not even realize the benefits that they might get by listening to the good and wise advises!

Such a situation could be observed in the smallest unit of the society, the family. It is quite likely that the head of the family, the senior male member of the family is relatively more experienced and wiser. Nevertheless, it is not necessary that other family members agree with the opinions of the wise senior always leading to much family conflicts and discords.

So, inferior minds with their higher egos would be always antagonistic to those few people who have attained higher levels of mind capacities and have thereby become mature and saner. Among themselves, the majority of people who are with lower perfection levels, would have much more reasons to be in disagreement with each other. 

Such differences create conflicts and coupled with their egos such conflicts lead to enmities. These animosities would be to such high degrees that they might even forget all other things in life and their only mission would sometimes become the desire to destroy those who do not agree to their view points! And then, some of them would actually go ahead, plan and implement their mission to destroy those who are opposing their ideas!

But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That causes others to retaliate because they too are imperfect ones!

Such conflicts among people cannot be wiped out and soothed easily. However, patient actions and strategies by some wiser people might sometimes help. Because, the wiser ones know the weaknesses of the immature people! It is the impatience that sometimes cause the wiser to become ineffective!

People with lower mind capacities are bound to have a larger proportion of animal traits within their minds. Such animal traits are greed, selfishness, fear, jealousy, anger, irrational behavior or responses, over indulgence in food, suspicion, impatience, godlessness, etc. And these animal traits create much dangerous and destructive situations when conflicts are initiated among them. They tend to culminate in mass suicidal events!

Such mass suicides that we call as wars or terrorist acts indirectly help to reduce the numbers of inferior people and develop some opportunities of better mind capacities in future generations.

But it is a great learning if one understand the root cause of all conflicts among humans. Conflicts are due to the differences of understanding among people ignited and flared up because of egoistic responses and counter responses.

Understanding among people could be enhanced to some extent by implementing properly designed training programs and by imparting proper education.

But training and education left in the hands of inferior trainers could do much damage than do any good. For training and education to be of good value, the trainers or the teachers have to be much experienced and possessing high knowledge, wisdom and maturity.

Incompetent teachers could do more damage than good. Hence, any progressive society would give much importance in the selection of the teachers of their educational institutions. That would ensure progressive mind development in the future generations of people.

Every individual has a different capacity to learn and understand. It is not possible for a person to learn some thing beyond his or her inherent brain capacity. Therefore, teaching and learning methods have to be designed wisely in accordance with the learning potential of the target groups. 

The present education system of the world is not essentially designed by wise people and is not for improving the mind potentials of the students. On the contrary, it is used for screening and classifying students in accordance with their mind potentials. This system, therefore, does not make improvements in the society with regard to its ability to settle down peacefully without conflicts. It only helps to enhance conflicts. 

I have come to this conclusion now. It is not possible to make this earth a better one by removing all conflicts and inequalities in the generation that we live. Because, our imperfections cannot be removed in one generation. That would require several generations.

How could you avoid conflicts when your wife, husband, children, parents, neighbors, colleagues, friends and the like are all different in their IQ levels and mind capacities to understand each other? With your differing understanding levels, you land into conflicts when you undertake verbal and non verbal interactions and communications! The more you talk, the more you become an enemy to others or others would appear as enemies to you!

Do you agree with me? 

Probably not. Because, your ideas and opinions would most likely different from mine as your mind capacities and experience levels are likely to be different.

But think of it any way. That is a humble request! Perhaps you would realize the truth some time later!

THE URANTIA BOOK : WHY I BELIEVE IT WHILE MOST CHRISTIANS DON'T !

Some months back I introduced a page titled Crucial Questions & Answers [C-Q&A] on the Urantia Book for the benefit of the readers of the website Urantia-India. This website in itself was a humble effort to introduce this great revelatory book to my countrymen.

Ever since this revelatory book got published in 1955 scores of spiritually curious truth seekers have been doing such efforts to make the contents of the book known to similarly inclined human beings of the modern era.

Since there is a lower probability of the Urantia-India website getting the attention of those browsing the Internet, I felt a strong desire to reproduce some content from that site to this blogpost site, for enabling it to be noticed by a larger audience of truth seekers.

The following was a crucial question that I asked myself :

What are the reasons that keep making me convinced about the truthfulness of the Urantia Book ? Why I consider this book not a hoax creation of some clever human beings ?

My answer to this crucial question is this:

When I began reading randomly from some papers of the book initially I too had this kind of a doubt coming to my mind. Essentially that was because of the unusual phraseology and the occurrences of many unusual words commonly not found in English language. Besides, the book deals with many subjects like history, science, religion, spirituality, geology, etc, which was not the way in which we normally are accustomed with books. In books, we normally expect to find some subject matter of specific interest and not something that goes beyond our interest at the moment.

For the majority of people, this would be reason enough to discard the book as something rubbish and leave it there.

Most likely they will not attempt exploring it further by careful reading.

Then there is the problem of religious dogmas and upbringing. If someone says that this is a book that teaches something different from their holy religious book, a kind of fear sets in. The common people are taught to believe that such books are 'satanic'.

For example, the Christians consider religious books of other religions in that manner, the Muslims consider the same way and the like. Again among the same religions, various sects and denominations consider their teachings sacrosanct and others' teachings originating from Satan! Thus there is a type of fear in common people to view books that deals with spiritual matters differently than their own belief systems. This matter is a delicate issue.

But the Urantia Book has enough things for those who are daring and curious. Therefore, those of this kind would naturally pursue reading this book to know more. In essence, the Urantia Book is meant for such people. These are the kind of people who are intellectually keen with above average IQ , educational background and have risen to such levels that they are inclined to devote time for intellectual pursuits of mind that goes beyond their day to day problems involving materialistic existence.

This implies that such people are now in a position to devote some of their time and mind in the pursuit towards spiritual curiosity-the curiosity to know about the invisible realms and God. Essentially they are the kind of people who are spiritually starved. They are the kind of people who want to connect to God, not for some materialistic benefits, but for fulfilling their desire for knowing their Unseen Father and to make their minds harmonized with Him as far as possible.

Such people, with this innate and unselfish desire to know God, are a negligible minority in this world bustling with people engaged in multifarious activities, including religious rituals and practices. The Urantia Book , though written for all mankind, is going to attract this minority individuals more than the others. The numbers of these minority individuals are going to increase as generations pass and there will come a day when such people would be the majority. That era would perhaps be the beginning of another epoch in human civilization!

Man has got the innate capacity to discern truth from untruth, provided that his acquired values, education, training and position do not cause him to be elevated to such a level of self importance that he is unable to utilize his God given capacity to separate truth from untruth, beauty from ugliness, good from bad and godly from ungodly.

Therefore, I feel it unwise to state my reasons for finding the Urantia Book true, or more precisely, believe what it says it is.

I can only say this much. I have found nothing in it that my innate mind discerns as untruth.

Moreover, it is the book that caused me to change my track from a life with more of materialistic concerns to a life with more of spiritual concerns.

It is the book that made me realize who is Jesus Christ and the essence of what he taught to the people of earth some 2000 years ago. 

It is the book that caused me to believe in the existence of God without any doubt.

It is the book that caused me to learn to lead a life without anxieties and worries. It is the book that made me to understand other religions. It is the book that keep inspiring me ever since.

One more thing I can say here. Before the Urantia Book came to my notice, I had the opportunity to read most of the sacred books of all the major religions. Later on I got the opportunity to read many New Age literature and the so called 'channelled' books. All these books have many good things, but at the same time there are things that cause doubts and questions. There are things which do not stand validated in the truthful probe of the mind.

But the Urantia Book goes much beyond, at the current level of my understanding.

I have not yet found anything in it that my mind cannot accept ! And my mind tells me that such a great work is beyond the capacity of human beings to fabricate.

People and powers who are capable of twisting the truths in clever manner still exist and are doing their part and that will keep happening.

But my safeguard is my god-given power to distinguish truth from untruth.

And this power is not exclusive to me.

It is with every one !

[ Interested in reading more Urantia Book related blogs? Click Here ! ]

[ Linked list of all the blogs of the author- Click Here ! ]

Science, Research and Conclusions: It Can Happen Like this Too !

The biology professor was instigating the scientific curiosity in his research student.

He wanted the young researcher to give an in depth study on the ants.

The focus now could be the ability of the ants in recognizing sounds.

The PhD aspirant thought it a good idea. She was hopeful of getting her doctorate in biology.

That would make her much qualified to teach the tiny tots in the public schools.

Or the future generations of researchers in the government funded universities.

Or to become an environmental expert who can decide what Pepsi should make and market.

The initial months went in preparations.

The literature surveys, collection and collation of existing scientific information needed much time.

Though google helped in collecting all the material required to fill her voluminous thesis, she has to collect and sort.

That is a big work indeed.

Google helped in digging out even century old research papers like this.

The researcher was now much satisfied with her project. Not much has been done in this research yet.

There is ample scope for her.

Another few months went in planning her experiments.

Some more in procuring some instruments and gadgets for her experiment through her department.

Budget is required for the procurements. It is not that easy.

The purchase department of the university has to follow the rules. And it is bound to take months.

Finally she and her guide were satisfied. They got all the gadgets for their experiments.

That included a microphone, sound amplifier, drawing board, measuring tapes, nail cutter and the like.

The lab attendant brought the live ants for the experiments.

One each in ten small glass ampules.

Then came the due day for conducting the experiment.

One ant was placed at the centre circle on the drawing board.

A decibel adjusted instruction " run " was shouted to the live specimen.

The ant moved out of the centre circle to escape.

The researcher allowed it ten seconds.

Then the distance moved by the ant got duly measured and noted as 10 cm.

The poor ant was caught again.

Its two legs were carefully cut with the nail cutter.

Then the experiment repeated. This time the ant moved only 5 cm.

Then another two of its legs got plucked.

Again it was given the audio command. This time the it ran 2 cm.

Then its last pair of legs got removed.

This time the ant moved little. It registered zero.

The experiment got repeated on the other specimens.

All records of experiments got duly noted.

The researchers were fully satisfied. There is a trend.

Enough data for a good regression analysis.

Finally the voluminous thesis work got printed and bound.

It was ready now for presentation and review.

Do you want to know what the researchers concluded ?

It read something like this :

" The hearing power of an ant is proportional to the number of legs it has. "

This is a small adaptation of a story what I heard from a speaker who made a lively speech to us teenagers in a youth camp some decades ago. He was trying to make us understand the follies of life. What we see, hear and apparently understand may not be true. It depends much on our level of understanding.

We live in an era of information explosion. You get all kinds of information on almost everything.

There are researchers like the ones of the story above who come out with their logic and analyses which appear as true for most people.

There are scientists who convince you with their experimental findings and conclusions.

There are medical researchers who come out with various kinds of 'proven' remedies.

They also have 'proven' treatments for various kinds of diseases.

There are health and hygiene researchers who can theorise on the ill effects of the foods you eat .

There is also the media who drumbeats on all kinds of researches and findings.

There is no harm in knowing about all these.

But there could be some, if you lose your ability to discern the right from the wrong !

[Read more blogs of the author here ]

Population Growth: Is there any need to worry ?

It is an amazing thing to realize the fact that our world has a population of over 7 billion human beings with wonderful qualities and skills.

Just watch the dynamism of this population growth here !

When I was a school boy, this population was less than half. People had fears of over population at that time.

More than 600 Million individuals got added after me in my country alone. Some how that earlier fears no more seem to cause any worries to any one. [You should consider glancing at the official census report of the Government of India here ]

Perhaps things are improving ! After all, we believe in God who is the creator and the provider !

From simple observations on the resources and our potentials of innovative ideas, I personally believe that this world has the potential to accommodate much more individuals.

Demography scientists predict that the world population would stabilize some time in 2050 when the death rates equal the birth rates. ( Read all that here !)

Another 2-3 billion people are going to occupy our world in another 40 years time.

Should we leave everything to God or do something about it ?

At least doing some planning for those beautiful people who are yet to come !

God has some plans for natural stability of this world. That is why He has put a limit to our ages !

But to live that life time of 80 or so years in full is in our hands.

While living merrily, there is a responsibility to on each and every one of us, to care for those around us!

If all of us learn the art of caring self and others, we can make this a replica of heaven.

Is it so difficult ?

What is Money ?

Money was a mystery for me during my childhood. As a school boy, I remember asking my father many times why this printed paper called the Rupee note or simply the note which was also called money was such a valuable thing.

I was not sure why those printed papers and those small metal pieces were so valuable.

I kept wondering why the shop keepers gave us many things in exchange of these small pieces of printed paper.

If that was so, why couldn't any one print more such papers so that we all have plenty of it and get all the things that we wanted by giving those papers to who wished to exchange their goods for those papers.

My father used to explain in vain about other abstract things like government ('Sarkar' or സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ in my  native language Malayalam) and the sole powers of the Sarkar to print such papers or make those metal coins that we treated as money. If others tried to make those things the Sarkar would catch them and punish them, I was informed.

So these two names, money and Sarkar remained too abstract for me to understand.

For many years I didn't know what is Sarkar and what is money.

I have been in search of true answers to these two questions all these years. I did not get an opportunity to get convincing answers to these from authentic sources until now.

No schools taught about it convincingly. At least the schools I studied did not.

No colleges taught about it either. At least the colleges I studied did not .

So I ventured beyond that and started reading books written by eminent economists and administrators.

They were all so confusing and full of jargons that did not go into my head, but flew over it.

Then it all became clear to me somehow.

But just as my father might have felt, I was finding it difficult to explain these things to my son when he was as becoming curious with these.

I was thinking how to explain these things in simple terms to laymen.

Then one day I remembered seeing a game of cards that a group of ruffians were playing in a hide out in our village, years ago.

I did not know how to play the game.

But I saw them playing. Six of them in all. And another one just sat there not playing, but with a small book and pencil with him.

As the six kept playing this lone one kept writing numbers in his book.

At the end of the game, the one who kept the book began adding and subtracting the numbers against each of the names of the six who were playing.

He also had a small cotton bag which contained some cashew nuts which he had colllected initially from the six players for joining in the game as a player.

At the end of the game, he distributed some nuts to a few of them as a reward for winning the game in accordance with the numbers he had in his book.

But he had more nuts in his bag even after distributing some to some of them.
There were some protest.

But there was some thing in this man that the others seemed scared of him.

So the murmers soon ended when this man stared gravely.

So he is the sarkar of the game ! Those six are the people ! The nuts are the money ! You can replace anything with the nuts.

But sarkar and people have to be there.

No sarkar and no people, then money means nothing !

Did you get it ?

Now let me explain some fundamentals of money and money making that I have learnt through my own observations for the last many years.

As you already know, I am not a certified or branded economist. I have not got any formal certifications from any authorized agency and hence I am not 'authorized' to make 'learned' opinions on economics or money. However, by any accident of chance, if I happen to occupy any official position in the government (for example using some 'political connections') which could brand me as an economist then my views could find a place in the laws of economics with the possible support of the so called 'media'!

So let me write down some universal truths which I have observed on money :

1. Money is the measure of value of a thing or service as determined by the people with sufficient general acceptance.

2. Units of money are country or region specific, such as dollar, rupee, pound, etc. which are enforced by governmental agencies on the basis of statutory rules and systems.

3. Since there can be a value for every thing, real and unreal, money represents the value of both real things such as potatoes, rice, wheat, petrol, milk, iron, gold, etc and unreal (abstract) things such as work, beauty, entertainment, enjoyment, assurance, services, opportunity, etc.

4. Money accumulated by transactions of goods and services is called fluid money which is either kept as mere numbers in bank accounts or kept in visible form as 'currency notes' or coins.

5. Accumulation of fluid money with individuals in such levels than they normally require for normal transactions can cause a deterioration in the measure of value for goods and services. Hence for any money system to work efficiently, clever systems of blocking the accumulation of fluid money has to be incorporated which are generally and legally accepted. One of the process of blocking fluid money is by creation of assets with a value measured in terms of money, such as buildings, shares, jewelry, artifacts, etc and its periodic destruction.

6. The factors which govern the build up of money by individuals and groups are essentially rules made by the government and the cleverness and efforts of people to make use of those rules.

7. Doing activities involving transactions of money is called business. If all activities are in accordance with the laws and rules of the government, the business is legal. Otherwise it is illegal.

8. Illegal business has the potential to make money which is called 'black money' which simply means money made through means not allowed by the government or not vetted by the government.

9. An economy whose money build ups are based on transactions of goods and services on an equitable basis is likely to be more stable than an economy which relies more on services.

10. An economy which provides opportunities for all families with a steady money source for meeting their expenses on food, clothing, shelter, transport, entertainment, health, education and contingencies can be deemed as well managed. A well managed economy is likely to make faster progress in overall civilization if not prevented by internal or external forces vitiating such a progress.