I am SHREYA’s fan

அட டா, சத்தியமா இந்த பெண்ணை பத்தி இல்ல பா....

இது வேர விஷயம்...

Let me come to the point. When you ask me what is the driving force behind the advancement in modern science and technology?

Undoubtedly , my answer is simply “the comfort”.

All the efforts of mankind, the accidental and the intentionals (discoveries and inventions) are fuelled by this only one goal, “the convenience”. Just think of the electricity, bulbs, telivision, players, stream engine, AC, washing machines, computers,laptops, mobiles, ATM’s, e-services, malls and multiplexes. Yes, its all for the convenience (the comfort), afterall, to want more is human. In modern times we have become materialistic and belive life to be an entirely material affair. Thus in this scheme we are born and we die. Meantime we try our best to accrue as many as possile and as much as we can , ranging from fame to possession.

For convenience we buy ready to make food but we don’t realise that they are not good for our body, mind and soul. The preservaties and additives can affect our well being, because we are what we eat (both physically and mentally). For our comfort we use air conditioners in houses, offices, vechiles etc, but we don’t realise that they degrade our health and our environment too.
For convenience we travel in bikes and cars, but we forget the body is meant to be exercised.
For convenience we use mobiles, but we are not bothered about its impact on our brain cells.
Our huge effort and expense for growth and convenience has put us in bad plight. We do not recognise that we are actually spirit. We do not focus on inner growth and never achieve self realization which is the main purpose of life. Lured by desire, we fail to live the life that is life indeed- the life of simplicity, sympathy, service, values and self realization.

So, who or what is going to help us from sinking?

“Religion”, any religion.

Yes, religion has the solution. All the religions of mankind are so many byroads leading to one supreme goal, “LIVE, LET LIVE THE LIFE”. Religion is our bond with God. Religion is philosophy of life expressed in conduct. Religion is like a diamound with several facets, one of them is Hinduism. In one of the Upanishad (KATHA UPANISHAD), ther are two concepts that illustrate our present plight. Preya and Shreya. Preya stands for what is pleasant and shreya for what is good. In the begning preya is alluring, say like a pizza, ready made noodles or Chips, but as time goes by, we harvest only sufferings and pain. On the other hand, shreya is daunting at first, say like going on a diet, taking up meditation, quitting smoke or alcohol, as time goes, we reap a harvest of joy, happiness, fulfilment, satisfaction more over we achieve self realization. Todays modern society is based on preya- mankind is running an endless race for material satisfaction. The accolade we get is stress, depression, loss of meaning, illness, conflict, unhealthy competitiveness and finally a degraded environment. A huge edifice of effort and expense aganist our best interest is seen at its worst.

Let us stop here. Its time to organise a society around the goal of shreya. Let me offer a few practical sugession, if you wish to make progress on the right path.
Lets go on a DIET,

·Do not act in a way that damages others or the society

·Invest in ourselves

·Espy everything in a holistic prespective

·Try to minimise our needs and desire, which in turn would ensure that every one has enough and no one has too much.

For instance, we upgrade our computer, the same importance has to be given to develop, upgrade our limitless potential, such as memory. We expect air conditioner and heating system to keep us cool and warm, we should also remember that we can actually control our temperature from within. A yoga can help you.

Focus on inner growth, Inequalities and social intolerace would cease in near future.
Believe.. Be Live…!

நான் 'அவன்' இல்லை....

‘Avan’ as a single child in a very normal family, grew up in Chennai. Avan’s life followed, as most would say, our society’s approved sequence. He had a formal education, followed by a timely marriage, and a career that many men in metros feel or made to feel incomplete without. Avan is now a “Team Leader” in a Multinational Company. He is an effective leader and always inspires his colleagues, give them hope and help them overcome obstacles and reach their full potential. Thus, Avan achieves maximum results in the best possible way. He is always successful.

What makes him always perform better? How is he always successful? Is it his Talent? Skills? Or his IQ?
Of course ‘Avan’ does not have a great IQ or special talent, persistence or thinking out of the box or Special skills. The truth is different.

It’s actually the “EI” of Avan. Yeah! “Emotional Intelligence” Since child hood we were told, taught that successful people had special talents, skills, better IQ and that they worked really hard to achieve their goals. And even today most talk about topics of self improvement is of positive thinking and visualization. These concepts are good and can help but, emotional intelligence has a more practical and really profound impact in a person who learns it and practices.

Then, what is EI?

It is the ability of a person to control, perceive and influence his or her own emotions and of other people around him or her. In other words, ‘EI’ is the ability to monitor our own and others feelings and emotions.

If so, is it new to us? No, It has been practiced for thousands of years but we were not aware of it or it wasnt defined, only few have realized and practiced its real importance.

Do we need it really? Let me tell you one common example, sometimes we express ourselves in certain ways where we are in pressing situations, at those moments we say what we think and the other one too, He or She might not disagree with us in the main point, but the way we say or impose becomes the cause for him or her to disagree with us. This clearly shows that, not our words but our actions or the way of saying it, is the cause for him/her to defend. If we can’t control our emotions, the say or the way we say, we can hurt relationships and partners for years to come. Only if we learn to perceive other peoples emotions and control ours, we are in advantage. Then it becomes easy for us to resolve a conflict better not expanding it.

A conflict like the example above is very common in our personal and professional relationships and sinks us in depression. Then it becomes horrible, and will let us in a life destroying condition (at least temporarily). Only the right sort of emotional intelligence can inoculate us against it, because most of us don’t understand why the counterpart can’t get our point?

Another example is when we are in a worst situation; where we might feel in a really bad mood and if we don’t control our emotions or understand others emotions, it will create a huge disaster on very small problems. This happens a lot in our day to day family relationships and at time of financial pressures.

Can we get it? Yes, we are born with a common emotional intelligence; it’s not a talent or skill. It’s something that can also be learned and developed to achieve our highest in performance. We all have some thing in common and some differences.

Can we improve and put it to practice? Yeah! We can improve our emotional intelligence by realizing and exercising it in our daily life. The truth is that it needs to be learned as any skill, you need practice until you get to the point where you can control your emotions and understand everyone else emotions and feelings. Believe! Life becomes much more enjoyable with good emotional intelligence.

Let me share an incidence that happened in Avan’s Life, as a proof to understand the impact of emotional intelligence. But slow down enough to listen, hear not only those words that are written, but the struggle, the strength and the hope carried between the lines as I narrate. Feel the warmth that fills our soul.

Sometimes it takes years for something to change our life. And sometimes, it takes only moments for every thing in our life to change. A boy was born to Avan after eleven years of his marriage. They were a loving couple and the boy was the apple of their eyes. It was the boys second birthday. That was exactly the time it happened. As if synchronized by fate, a Monday morning, Avan was in a hurry to his office, saw a medicine bottle open, as he was running late, he asked his wife to ‘cap’ the bottle and keep it in the cupboard.

His wife, preoccupied in the kitchen totally forgot the matter. The boy playfully went to the medicine bottle and, fascinated with its color, drank it all. It happened to be a poisonous medicine meant for adults in small dosages. When the boy showed signs of poisoning she took him to the hospital, where he died. She was in a state of shock, her son’s smiling face flashed through her eyes constantly. She was terrified how to face her husband.

Avan rushed from work, came to the hospital and saw the dead child; distraught Avan looked at his wife and uttered just four words.

“I Love You Darling".

She was stunned. This, totally unexpected reaction is a proactive behavior. The child is dead; he can never be brought back to life. There is no point in finding fault with his wife. In fact, she had also lost her only child. What she needed at that moment was consolation and sympathy from her husband. And that is what he gave her. Avan is strong, not in physical sense of the word but emotionally, he is indeed a genius in human relationships. Only emotional intelligence can do great things in personal and professional relationships.

If every one can look at life with this kind of perspective, then there would be much fewer problems in this world. I know, we cannot change the whole world but we can change our life by getting more and better relationship forever. Understand that Life truly is what we make out of it! Take off all your envies, jealousies, selfishness and fears, definitely you will find that things are actually not as difficult as you (we) think.

Let a ‘journey of thousand (s)miles begin with this single step’.

அன்புடன்,

நான் (அவன் இல்லை).

“There you go, try to get this one”

What comes to our mind, when we think about ‘Tennis’?
Major tournaments? The stars? Or the millions of dollar they earn as prize money? Or the perks they enjoy as most top sports personalities?

Yes! Tennis is one of the costliest sport. It was once, The King of Games and the Game of Kings.

But today tennis enjoys millions of recreational players and it is also a hugely popular worldwide spectator sport.

‘Tennis’ as a sport was believed to be developed in France, was originally “tenez” and pronounces as ‘tuh-nay’. It is a French verb ‘tenir’; on translation it gives a meaning something like “there you go”. They were saying “tenez” when they hit the ball so as to say “there, there you go; try to get this one”.

But tennis lost popularity in France and gained popularity in England. So English people were using the word “tenez” each time they hit the ball, but saying it in English accent, sounded more like “tennis”, which eventually took the new spelling.

Why does tennis use the scores ‘fifteen’, ‘thirty’, and ’fourty’?
In the original scoring system, players had to win four points to win a game and four games to win a set. The points were recorded on a clock face, with one point for each quarter. So it became common to refer to the first point as fifteen, because it’s the first quarter. Thirty became the second point for the same reason. Forty five was shortened to fourty. That marked the third quarter. And the game had been won when the fourth quarter at the top of the clock face.

Then what about ‘love all’? Hope you do not need telling, as ‘Love’ means nothing, zero, no points in a game. There is a possibility that this may have come from the English pronunciation of the French word ‘I’oeuf, meaning ‘the egg’.

Tennis has another unusual score too. That is ‘deuce’, which comes from ‘deux’, a French word for ‘two’. Deuce is used when both players have scored forty and need two points to win the game.The modern tennis has all of this and more.