Gandhi and Nehru

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India.

Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.

Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics for much of the 20th century.

He was a passionate advocate of education for India's children and youth, believing it essential for India's future progress.  His government oversaw the establishment of many institutions of higher learning, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and the National Institutes of Technology.

7 Secrets to Living to 100 in Good Health

When the first U.S. Census was conducted in 1790, only 2 percent of the population was over 65. In 1900, the average American lifespan was only 47. People who made it to 100 were considered freaks of nature.

Today, people with a three-digit age are common. There are more than 100,000 of them in the United States, and the number is accelerating rapidly.

“If you are reading this article there is a very real change that you will live to be 100 because of medical advances," says Stephen Jones, M.D., board-certified geriatric medicine specialist and director for Healthy Aging at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Conn.

But Dr. Jones believes that merely making it to 100 is setting the bar too low. Everybody’s goal should be to live longer – but also healthier. It’s that last part that is giving Americans trouble, he says.

“We are living longer, but we are not necessarily living healthier,” Dr. Jones told Newsmax Health. This is mainly due to lifestyle factors, he said.

Here are six ways Dr. Jones says that will dramatically increase your chances to make it to 100 in good health:

1.     Take control of stress. When you’re under stress, your body releases cortisol, known as “the stress hormone.” Cortisol accelerates your bodily processes, speeding up aging. Focus on relaxation in your daily life. Events themselves are not stressful – it is your response that makes you tense. For example, if you’re stuck in traffic, don’t spend the time whipping yourself into road rage. Instead, listen to the radio, meditate, or pray – you’ll get there in the same amount of time, but you won’t be stressed out.

2.     Get plenty of sleep. There is a myth that older people need less sleep. But adults need seven or eight hours, no matter their age. However, as you age deep, restorative sleep becomes more elusive. A few hours before bedtime, avoid caffeine or alcohol, relax quietly, and avoid activities that are stressful or require high alertness. Investing in a good-quality mattress and bed linens can also make a difference.

3.     Laugh a lot. A good belly laugh reduces blood pressure, clears the lungs, and produces endorphins, the so-called “happy” hormone that reduces pain. The average child laughs 300 times a day. Adults: 17 times. Research shows that keeping laughter alive keeps you alive. Make it priority to look for humor in life.

4.     Exercise daily. Your body craves movement. The worst thing you can do for your health is sit around and do nothing. Even if you’re 80, it’s never too late to start exercising, research shows. In fact, exercise benefits “late bloomers,” even more than people who have been active their entire lives. That’s why someone who is 80 and starts a conditioning program can suddenly put on some muscle. The mistake people make is in treating exercise like it’s torture. The key is finding an activity you enjoy and making it part of your routine.

5.     Find a companion. Studies show that people live longer if they are married, part of a couple, have close friends, or have pets. Make it a goal to meet people. Volunteer at church or community groups. Don’t be afraid to be alone, but beware of social isolation.

6.     Use your brain. Years ago, doctors believed that, unlike other organs, the brain could not regenerate. Now we know this is not true. Important connections between brain cells can be re-established. When your brain is stimulated, more connections are made, no matter your age. Stimulate your brain by learning new things. Take up a new hobby, learn a new language, or just break out of your routine. Take a different route home, explore a different neighborhood, and try eating with your left hand instead of your right.

7.     Live in the moment. No matter how perfectly you live your life, you are not going to live forever. So pay attention to what is happening in the moment, and don’t waste valuable time mourning the past or worrying about the future. No matter what you’re doing, whether it’s spending time with your friends, being with your co-workers, or even just getting ready to go to sleep, relish every moment. Treat everyday as a gift – that’s why it’s called the “present!”

Capitalism and the Wage System

The world is full of preventable evils which most men would be glad to see prevented. Nevertheless, these evils persist, and nothing effective is done toward abolishing them.

This paradox produces astonishment in inexperienced reformers, and too often produces disillusionment in those who have come to know the difficulty of changing human institutions.

War is recognized as an evil by an immense majority in every civilized country; but this recognition does not prevent war.

The unjust distribution of wealth must be obviously an evil to those who are not prosperous, and they are nine tenths of the population. Nevertheless, it continues unabated.

The tyranny of the holders of power is a source of needless suffering and misfortune to very large sections of humanity; but power remains in few hands, and tends, if anything, to grow more concentrated.

I wish first to study the evils of our present institutions, and the causes of the very limited success of reformers in the past, and then to suggest reasons for the hope of a more lasting and permanent success in the near future.

The war has come as a challenge to all who desire a better world. The system, which cannot save humanity from such an appalling disaster, is at fault somewhere, and cannot be amended in any lasting way unless the danger of great wars in the future can be made very small.

But war is only the final flower of an evil tree. Even in times of peace, most men live lives of monotonous labor, most women are condemned to drudgery, which almost kills the possibility of happiness before youth is past, most children are allowed to grow up in ignorance of all that would enlarge their thoughts or stimulate their imagination. The few who are more fortunate are rendered illiberal by their unjust privileges, and oppressive through fear of the awakening indignation of the masses.

From the highest to the lowest, almost all men are absorbed in the economic struggle: the struggle to acquire what is their due or to retain what is not their due. Material possessions, in fact or in desire, dominate our outlook, usually to the exclusion of all generous and creative impulses. Possessiveness—the passion to have and to hold—is the ultimate source of war, and the foundation of all the ills from which the political world is suffering. Only by diminishing the strength of this passion and its hold upon our daily lives can new institutions bring permanent benefit to humankind.

Institutions which will diminish the sway of greed are possible, but only through a complete reconstruction of our whole economic system. Capitalism and the wage system must be abolished; they are twin monsters which are eating up the life of the world. In place of them we need a system which will hold in check men's predatory impulses, and will diminish the economic injustice that allows some to be rich in idleness while others are poor in spite of unremitting labor; but above all we need a system which will destroy the tyranny of the employer, by making men at the same time secure against destitution and able to find scope for individual initiative in the control of the industry by which they live.  A better system can do all these things, and can be established by the democracy whenever it grows weary of enduring evils which there is no reason to endure.

We may distinguish four purposes at which an economic system may aim: first, it may aim at the greatest possible production of goods and at facilitating technical progress; second, it may aim at securing distributive justice; third, it may aim at giving security against destitution; and, fourth, it may aim at liberating creative impulses and diminishing possessive impulses.

Of these four purposes, the last is the most important. Security is chiefly important as a means to it. State socialism, though it might give material security and more justice than we have at present, would probably fail to liberate creative impulses or produce a progressive society.

Our present system fails in all four purposes. It is chiefly defended on the ground that it achieves the first of the four purposes, namely, the greatest possible production of material goods, but it only does this in a very shortsighted way, by methods which are wasteful in the long run both of human material and of natural resources.

Capitalistic enterprise involves a ruthless belief in the importance of increasing material production to the utmost possible extent now and in the immediate future. In obedience to this belief, new portions of the earth's surface are continually brought under the sway of industrialism. Vast tracts of Africa become recruiting grounds for the labor required in the gold and diamond mines of the Rand, Rhodesia, and Kimberley; for this purpose, the population is demoralized, taxed, driven into revolt, and exposed to the contamination of European vice and disease. Healthy and vigorous races from Southern Europe are tempted to America, where sweating and slum life reduce their vitality if they do not actually cause their death.

What damage is done to our own urban populations by the conditions under which they live, we all know. And what is true of the human riches of the world is no less true of the physical resources. The mines, forests, and wheat-fields of the world are all being exploited at a rate, which must practically exhaust them at no distant date. On the side of material production, the world is living too fast; in a kind of delirium, almost all the energy of the world has rushed into the immediate production of something, no matter what, and no matter at what cost. Yet our present system is defended on the ground that it safeguards progress!

It cannot be said that our present economic system is any more successful in regard to the other three objects which ought to be aimed at. Among the many obvious evils of capitalism and the wage system, none are more glaring than that they encourage predatory instincts, that they allow economic injustice, and that they give great scope to the tyranny of the employer.

Continue reading, click here > http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4776/4776-h/4776-h.htm

Shreeman Narayan Narayan Hari Hari

Murugan songs 12

The Science Of Getting Rich

THERE is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the inter spaces of the universe.

A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit.

Man may come into full harmony with the Formless Substance by entertaining a lively and sincere gratitude for the blessings it bestows upon him. Gratitude unifies the mind of man with the intelligence of Substance, so that man’s thoughts are received by the Formless. Man can remain upon the creative plane only by uniting himself with the Formless Intelligence through a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude.

Man must form a clear and definite mental image of the things he wishes to have, to do, or to become; and he must hold this mental image in his thoughts, while being deeply grateful to the Supreme that all his desires are granted to him. The man who wishes to get rich must spend his leisure hours in contemplating his Vision, and in earnest thanksgiving that the reality is being given to him. Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of frequent contemplation of the mental image, coupled with unwavering faith and devout gratitude. This is the process by which the impression is given to the Formless, and the creative forces set in motion.

The creative energy works through the established channels of natural growth, and of the industrial and social order. All that is included in his mental image will surely be brought to the man who follows the instructions given above, and whose faith does not waver. What he wants will come to him through the ways of established trade and commerce.

In order to receive his own when it shall come to him, man must be active; and this activity can only consist in more than filling his present place. He must keep in mind the Purpose to get rich through the realization of his mental image. And he must do, every day, all that can be done that day, taking care to do each act in a successful manner. He must give to every man a use value in excess of the cash value he receives, so that each transaction makes for more life; and he must so hold the Advancing Thought that the impression of increase will be communicated to all with whom he comes in contact.

The men and women who practice the foregoing instructions will certainly get rich; and the riches they receive will be in exact proportion to the definiteness of their vision, the fixity of their purpose, the steadiness of their faith, and the depth of their gratitude.

 

Download the entire work here:  The Science of Getting Rich 

Prathap G house at Omalloor

The 10 Pounds

Income Inequality

Rising corporate profits are obviously good since they mean more hiring, better wages, and more wealth. The problem, however, is that most of that money is being siphoned off into the personal coffers of top management while rank and file employees see little of it.

It is also worth remembering that people on lower rungs of the ladder rarely receive equity as executives do, limiting their participation in their company's good fortune.

Sanjay Sanghoee - Posted: 03/19/2013 5:01 pm