It is in our hands to make life beautiful

Today, I was jogging alone in the municipal stadium of Thiruvalla after 7 am. The sunlight was falling on my face and entire body. It was not warm-just a sensation of bright light on the body. It was wonderful to run in the sunlight especially when there was nothing to bother me. I looked around-it was all greenary. I listened and heard the sweet sound of some birds. I love the sound of a bird which people here call sparrow in Malayalam, but this one is only one or two inch long. It has a captivating sound and the way it moves around is so cute. The sound of my footsteps and breath seemed to be in rhythm. Then, My heart opened up and it was filled with gratitude towards God, my parents, my wife, my friends and everything in the world. It was one of those rare moments when I live in the present and enjoy life. At that moment, life seemed to be beautiful. Nothing bothered me. I was not worried of anything. I had a feeling of being one with the nature. The following thoughts occured to me at that time.

We all are capable of accepting good values and habits in life. However, if our community gives importance to things that are not desirable and forces us to imitate them, then peace, happiness and joy will remain strangers to us.  And today the society is forcing us to accept unnatural values and habits. However, if we act prudently and return to natural values and habits life will become beautiful.

Today, it is very hard to control our brains. We must realize that just like any other organ our brain is also an organ. We do not keep on using our hands when we do not want to use it. However, our brain keeps on thinking even when we do not want to think. That is causing misery to us. We must be able to concentrate on the things that are happening at present and stop our mind from keep on thinking about past or future. It is important to think about past and future at certain times. However, when we begin to be unhappy because of our thoughts, I think we should stop thinking for a short period and start to concentrate on things around us and do things that we enjoy for sometime everyday. Exercise is an activity that nature wants us to do. Our body can function well only if it gets proper exercise.

Living in the present without fear or worry is the key to a happy life. Living with gratitute towards everybody in life makes us happy and improves the quality of our relationships with others. Being kind to others makes us better humans.  

It was nice to see children behaving respectfully towards others

Today, a 7th class student invited us to visit his school to see an exhibition. We teach him at our institute, so we accepted his invitation. We wanted to see his happiness on seeing us. Three people from our institute and one student of ours left for his school in the afternoon on two bikes. We reached that school in around twenty minutes. We entered that school and found that the school has an interesting aspect to it. It is a four storied building nearly at the centre of a small hill. The road winds and takes us to the top of the building and the entrance is at the top floor. We looked around and kids were  standing at different places- some gatherered in groups and some loitering alone. Some students were in uniform-cream shirt and brown pants and skirts. The kids were looking lovely, adorable and cute. Some students were wearing beautiful colour dresses. Teachers could be seen in bright sarees, some looking worried, some in a hurry, some bored and some enjoying the occasion. We somehow found the place where our student had invited us, but to our disappointment he was not at his place. A small, lovely child standing at his place told us that he had left the place sometime ago. We looked around, but could not find him. At that time, a suggestion came up that we should all split up and each one should search in a different direction. We did that and finally we found him at the ground floor. He was perspiring profusely. We talked to him and he was about to introduce us to his friends when we told him to meet the other people who came with us. Then, we went upstairs. We were all tired by now. Later, we said good bye to him and returned.

We found the students in the school to be very respectful and friendly. We were talking about this when somebody told us that once a father took admission for his son in this school. The son was very naughty and disobedient. In some days after joining the school, the behaviour of the boy started to change, and one day, the boy touched the feet of his father and mother reverently. This brought tears into the eyes of his parents. The father was very happy. He tells others that even if his son does not study well that is alright with him, as long as he is obedient and respectful towards others.

There are millions of children who behave very nicely with everyone, yet their parents do not value this. Parents give more importance to the marks they score and the money that they are able to make. How sweet it would be if all the parents appreciated and celebrated good behaviour of their children rather than haunting their children for useless degrees. What will the parents gain if they raise a bad human being who is intelligent and rich? Better to be poor and humane than to be rich and inhumane.

I like this school because it is teaching good values and traditions to the children, but I don't approve of the way they worship a god women. May be every good thing comes with something bad.

How legal violence, in the form of taxes, leads to moral and social anarchy

The democratic government is no different than an autocratic or a colonial government. Revenue generation by way of taxes is one factor that makes these governments the same.

Will anybody argue that the kings and colonial governments imposed taxes on people for the benefit of the people? Democratic governments use the same exploitative way to collect money to spend for public welfare. They threaten people of imprisonment if they don't pay tax.

Why do the governments use threat to collect tax? Is it because they could not find a better way which does not use imprisonment as a threat to collect money from common people? or Is it because the democratic governments too do not trust the common people to give their cooperation to the government to work for public welfare? or Is it because the people who run the democratic governments know that common people are aware of the way they actually use the public money for their own private purposes and so try not to pay them anything?

Whatever the reason, the democratic governments continue to use an evil method to ensure social cooperation.

It is obvious that the autocratic and colonial governments imposed taxes for two reasons.

 One reason is that they wanted people to work for them for free. The kings and the Queens threatened people that if they do not pay one fourth of their income to them, they would send their soldiers and punish them or kill them. So, they used violence and threat of violence to make common people to work for them. This custom of paying money to the rulers became a habit which most people did not even think of opposing, unless it became unbearable. So, taxes became acceptable in normal times.

 The second reason is that the rulers, especially the colonial governments, wanted people to use the money issued by them as a medium of exchange. The people did not need any money to cooperate among themselves. When they needed money they used, wood or shells or any other item as money. The rulers wanted the common people to use the coins issued by them as money. They wanted this because the people would do whatever the rulers said to get the coins and the rulers just had to mint or make coins and the whole country would work for them to get these coins.Once people accepted their coins as a medium of exchange, the rulers needed to ensure only one thing to keep people working for them- they only needed to ensure tax collection. Because if they stopped tax collection, the people would not work for the government issued money and slowly the money issued by the government would stop being the medium of exchange. This will free the people and the people will no longer work for the rulers and the rulers will again have to use shameless violence and open threat to make people work for them. Imposing tax was the easy and safe way to ensure obedience from the ignorant and innocent people.

The imposition of taxes on people gives too much power in the hands of the government. The government can decide to collect higher taxes or lower taxes from certain sections of people and influence how people live.

This power of taxation has wreaked havoc in the society. It has not only torn the social fabric but has also deprived the people of any moral anchor. Now, we all see what is happening in our society- the corruption, helplessness, poverty, crime, moral degradation- The way taxes are collected has a lot to do with this state of affairs.

Every kind and free individual should strive to find a way in which we can ensure the cooperation of the people in a democratic way, without the threat of imprisonment. That definitely needs grassroots activism, because democracy can not be imposed from above, it has to come from below. Decentralisation of political power in the form of panchayati raj can be a solution.

If you too are ready to work at the grassroot level, then let us work together. let us, work fast- life is getting unbearable.