Are “Mental Illnesses” Really Potentially Helpful Tools?

If your behavior, thoughts, or feelings become a concern, for a fee, many psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers are eager to translate your experiences into a language of symptoms, diagnoses, psychopathology, and mental illness. In earlier posts I provided negative criticism about this type of name-calling from several different angles ((see here, here, here, here and here).  Today, we focus in on an additional problem with the pathologizing approach.

Psychiatric Name-Calling Simplistically Devalues What William James Referred to as “Exceptional Experiences”

Tools can be used for good or evil.  A hammer can be used to drive in nails in the construction of a life-preserving shelter or to bludgeon an innocent person to death. A car can be used to rush a child to an emergency room so that life-preserving treatment can be administered, or it can be used to tragically end a prom night. Are experiences that are oftentimes referred to as pathological really tools, and is it up to each one of us to use them either for good or evil?

William James

The first time I came across this question occurred while reading about William James’s 1896 series of lectures on “Exceptional Mental States.”  Harvard psychologist, Eugene Taylor, had reconstructed these lectures from James’s original handwritten lecture notes, newspaper reports, letters, and a variety of other sources.

At the very beginning of the lectures, James argues that experiences that are commonly viewed as unhealthy or morbid are really “an essential part of every character,” and give life “a truer sense of values.” To support his contention, James first provides three examples of famous individuals who suffered from melancholy, a term that corresponds closely with what modern pathologizers call “major depressive disorder.” St. Paul, the religious figure of the New Testament, Cesare Lombrosa, a late 19th-century Italian criminologist, and Immanual Kant, the 18th-century German philosopher, became, according to their histories, better as a result of their troubling experiences.

Not only is melancholy far more normal and potentially beneficial than the pathologizers would like us to believe, so too, James argues, are delusions and hallucinations. James tells us that the belief in the possession by demons, which is often viewed as a delusion by pathologizers, is remarkably common. “[It] is the one most articulately expressed doctrine of both Testaments, and . . . reined for seventeen hundred years, hardly challenged in churches.”

James then goes on to tell his audience about Buddhist sects in Japan that have priests who believe they can put themselves into a trance so that a god can speak through them. These people seek to cultivate these experiences, apparently believing that they provide some benefits to their sect.

Although hallucinations can be construed as a symptom of mental illness to some, James presents the case of Socrates who “once stood motionless for many hours in the cold and spoke of having a guiding demon.” Attempting to counter the association between pathologies and hallucinations, James states,

Even if this demon [of Socrates] were really meant hallucinations of hearing, we know now that one in eight or ten of the population has had such an experience and that for insanity we must resort to other tests than these.

Like melancholy, delusions, and hallucinations, the “symptoms” of obsessions and manias are treated in James’s lectures as experiences that are normal and potentially beneficial. Thus, James states that there is no end to the possible types of obsessions that we see all around us. And what about “the anti-slavery mania?” Is this to be viewed as pathological? What benefit can such experiences have? James tells his audience about Henry Borg, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Charles Henry Parkhurst, a Presbyterian clergyman and reformer who launched a furious attack on organized crime in state government that led to an official investigation; Dorothea Dix, a mid-19th-century humanitarian who visited the insane asylums and successfully advocated for legislation to improve the care for those now labeled mentally ill; General Booth, founder of the Salvation Army; Frances Willard, a suffragette; and others. “These persons,” said James, “are not insane, not maniacs, not melancholics, not deluded.”

Later, he states, “Individuals are types of themselves and enslavement to conventional names and their associations is only too apt to blind the student to the facts before him.”

As Taylor (1984) closes his reconstruction of the lecture series, he quotes James as follows:

There is a strong tendency among these pathological writers I have cited… to represent the line of mental health as a very narrow crack, which one must tread with bated breath, between foul friends on the one side and gulfs of despair on the other. Now health is a term of subjective appreciation, not of objective description….There is no purely objective standard of sound health. Any peculiarity that is of use to a man is a point of soundness in him, and what makes a man sound for one function may make him unsound for another…. The trouble is that such writers . . . use the descriptive names of symptoms merely as an artifice for giving objective authority to their personal dislikes. The medical terms become mere appreciative clubs to knock a man down with. . . . The only sort of being, in fact, who can remain as the typical normal man, after all the individuals with degenerative symptoms have been rejected, must be a perfect nullity . . . Who shall absolutely say that the morbid has no revelations about the meaning of life? That the healthy minded view so-called is all?

William James and the Leo Tolstoy Example

A few years after this series of lectures, James wrote one of his classic works, The Varieties of Religious Experience.  There he tells us about the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s 2-year period of despair.

Leo Tolstoy

In his painfully personal book, My Confession, Tolstoy relates how, at about the age of 50, his life had become “flat, more than flat: dead.”

I felt that something had broken within me on which my life had always rested, that I had nothing left to hold on to, and that morally my life had stopped. An invincible force impelled me to get rid of my existence, in one way or another…. Behold me then … hiding the rope in order not to hang myself from the rafters of the room where every night I went to sleep alone; behold me no longer going shooting, lest I should yield to the too easy temptation of putting an end to myself with my gun.

All of this took place at a time when Tolstoy’s outer circumstances seemed excellent.

I had a good wife who loved me and whom I loved; good children and a largeproperty which was increasing with no pains taken on my part. I was morerespected by my kinsfolk and acquaintances than I had ever been; I was loaded with praise by strangers; and without exaggeration I could believe my name already famous.

Tolstoy goes on to explain how his melancholy stimulated a gnawing questioning that eventually led to one insight after another. His trouble had not been with life in general, not with the common life of common men, but with the life of the upper, intellectual, artistic classes, the life that he had personally always led, the cerebral life, the life of conventionality, artificiality, and personal ambition. He had lived wrongly and had to change. Then, one day in early spring, while he was alone in the forest listening to its mysterious noises, he was filled with a sense of deeper meaning. “After that,” he wrote, “things cleared up within me and about me better than ever, and the light has never wholly died away.”  According to Tolstoy, his suicidal feelings disappeared, and he went on to live a productive life until he passed away at the age of 82 of natural causes.

Now, as we look over the information provided, much of it in Tolstoy’s own words, we see that no pathology words are used, and yet we have enough detail to get a pretty clear picture of Tolstoy’s experience.

When James uses a brief phrase to refer to Tolstoy’s experience, he chooses “an attack of melancholy,” rather than “mental illness.” Melancholy serves us well. It is an experience that is familiar to us all. To me, it evokes the beautiful words from the Joni Mitchell song “Hejira”:

Joni Mitchell

There’s comfort in melancholy where there’s no need to explain. It’s just as natural as the weather in this moody sky today.

In our Tolstoy example, his melancholy appeared at first to come on him as if out of the blue. Later, Tolstoy came to understand it as having been due to living wrongly. Only by questioning deeply and repeatedly the meaning of his despair did he come to this understanding.  Thus, Tolstoy’s experience, it seems to me, is far more aptly construed as a tool for personal growth than a mental illness.

The Review of the Evidence

Robert Whitaker

It may seem a fanciful theory that the experiences now referred to as mental illnesses can be potentially helpful.  However, in 2010, Robert Whitaker published a book titled Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness. To write the book, he pored through the scientific literature for the past 50 years and found a dramatic increase in the number of people who are pathologized, which led to an astonishing increase in psychiatric drug consumption.  And more people then ever before became disabled for longer and longer periods of time.

Here is just one of many such studies that Whitaker describes.

In the 1980s, Martin Harrow, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, began a long-term study of 64 newly diagnosed schizophrenia patients. Every few years, he assessed how they were doing. Were they symptomatic? In recovery? Employed? Were they taking antipsychotic medications? The collective fate of the off-med and medicated patients began to diverge after two years, and by the end of 4.5 years, it was the off-medication group that was doing much better. Nearly 40% of the off-med group were “in recovery” and more than 60% were working, whereas only 6% of the medicated patients were “in recovery” and few were working. This divergence in outcomes remained throughout the next ten years, such that at the 15-year follow-up, 40% of those off drugs were in recovery, versus 5% of the medicated group.

Whitaker also found studies that compared cultures, like our own, that employed the pathologizing model with cultures that framed exceptional experiences as potentially beneficial.  Countries infected with the pathologizing approach had outcomes significantly poorer.

These findings lead me to conclude that it is time to have a reasonable discussion about embracing other models of care.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence.

source https://drjeffreyrubin.wordpress.com

Unemployment changes your core personality

The psychological damage caused by unemployment is greater than previously thought, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Stirling.
It’s well known that being unemployed for a significant amount of time can have a negative effect on your physical and emotional wellbeing. It’s likely to raise your risk of depression and suicide. But according to a new study, being unemployed can actually alter your personality too, making you less agreeable and influencing your levels of conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness.
"Personality is typically considered stable across time but the researchers found that the experience of unemployment led to reduced levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness; signifying that individuals lose motivation, become less considerate and sympathetic, and less curious about the world around them. These changes were greater the longer an individual spent unemployed."
Source: Boyce C, Wood A, Daly M, Sedikides C. Personality Change Following Unemployment. Journal of Applied Psychology. 2015.

False memory syndrome

False memory syndrome is a condition in which a person's identity and interpersonal relationships center around a memory of a traumatic experience that is objectively false but that the person strongly believes. Note that the syndrome is not characterized by false memories as such. We all have inaccurate memories. Rather, the syndrome is diagnosed when the memory is so deeply ingrained that it orients the individual's entire personality and lifestyle—disrupting other adaptive behavior. False memory syndrome is destructive because the person assiduously avoids confronting evidence that challenges the memory. Thus it takes on a life of its own; the memory becomes encapsulated and resistant to correction. Subjects may focus so strongly on the memory that it effectively distracts them from coping with real problems in their life. The term is not recognized as a mental disorder in any of the medical manuals, such as the ICD-10 or the DSM-5; however, the principle that memories can be altered by outside influences is overwhelmingly accepted by scientists 

False Memory Syndrome And The Brain

Kathleen Flannery

In the mid-nineties, a sniper's hammering shots echoed through an American playground. Several children were killed and many injured. A 1998 study of the 133 children who attended the school by psychologists Dr. Robert Pynoos and Dr. Karim Nader, experts on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among children, yielded a very bizarre discovery. Some of the children who were not on the schools grounds that day obstinately swore they had very vivid personal recollections of the attack happening (1). The children were not exaggerating, or playing make-believe. They were adamant about the fact that they were indeed there, and that they saw the attack as it was occuring. Why would these children remember something so harrowing if they didn't actually experience it? What kind of trick was their brain playing on them? Why did it happen?
False Memory Syndrome (FMS) is a condition in which a person's identity and interpersonal relationships are centered on a memory of traumatic experience which is actually false, but in which the person is strongly convinced (2). When considering FMS, it's best to remember that all individuals are prone to creating false memories. A common experiment in Introduction to Psychology courses include a test similar to this one:
Look at this list of words and try to memorize them:
sharp thread sting eye pinch sew thin mend
After a few seconds, the students will be asked to recall these words, and are asked the following questions: Was the word "needle" on the list? Was it near the top? The majority of the class will vehemently agree that needle was, in fact, on the list. And not only that, it was actually quite close to being the first word. Some will attest to having vivid recollections of seeing the word "needle" on the page. These students have created a false memory. Due to the exposure of words similar to or related to the word "needle", they have very genuine memories of actually seeing the word on the list. Like the children who were absent from school on the day of the sniper attack, the false memories were stimulated by exposure to similar words (or in the sniper case, stories). In the school children's case, the false memories were created by the exposure to the stories of those who actually underwent the trauma. Our brain uses three diverse procedures to receive information, store information, and access it. These processes are: Sensory information storage, which acts like a very small holding tank, briefly storing information upon impact. Short term memory, in which the brain accounts for what has just happened, also based mainly on the senses. This has a bit more durability than sensory information storage because the brain can interpret the information it's receiving more so than in sensory information storage. Finally, there is Long term memory, the procedure in which the brain stores away significant or enduring information for retrieval at a later date (3).
So where exactly is this false memory of the sniper attack being stored? Because the brains of young children are not as fully developed as the brains of adults, it's interesting to consider that Jean Piaget, the well-known child psychologist, asserted that his earliest memory was of a botched kidnapping at the age of 2. He distinctly remembered details of watching his nurse try to fend off the kidnapper as he sat in his stroller, and the policeman's uniform as he chased the kidnapper away. Thirteen years after the alleged attack, the nurse admitted to Piaget's parents that she had fabricated the story. However, the story, told repeatedly by the nurse, crept into Piaget's psyche and expanded until it took on a life of its own. Piaget later wrote: "I therefore must have heard, as a child, the account of this story...and projected it into the past in the form of a visual memory, which was a memory of a memory, but false" (4).
Due to the way our brains work, remembering a kidnapping incident at the age of 2 could be nothing other than a false memory. The left inferior prefrontal lobe is not yet developed in infants (4). It is this lobe that is necessary for long-term memory. The complicated and sophisticated encoding necessary for remembering such an event could not occur in the infant's brain. However, the adult brain works in a far different way. Valerie Jenks, a woman living in Idaho, was raped at the age of 14. After a few seemingly trauma-free years, she began to become depressed shortly after her marriage and the birth of her first child. In therapy, Dr. Mark Stephenson convinced her to try hypnotherapy, and after her very first session, Jenks came to believe that she'd been sexually abused by her family and friends (5). In Freud's theory of "repression", the mind involuntarily expels traumatic events from memory to avoid overpowering anxiety and trauma (6). Aided by the memory of her rape at age 14, Jenks created a false memory - an elaborately fabricated memory of rape and molestation by her father and other family members. These memories were "repressed memories", said Stephenson. Further, Stephenson said she answered "yes" to many of his questions, not verbally, but by tapping the index finger of her left hand. These tappings were "body memories", claimed Stephenson. According to him, some patients have tried to explain their physical distress as coming from repressed "body memories" of incest. Therapists have told patients that "the body remembers what the mind forgets," and that many of the physical sensations they are experiencing during therapy (like Jenks' finger tapping) are symptoms of forgotten childhood sexual mistreatment. These memories, said Stephenson, are documented in cellular DNA. (7).) However, absolutely no scientific proof supports this notion of a "body memory". Memories are encoded and stored in the three processes of the brain discussed earlier. A psychical pain or sensation is not evidence that abuse occurred (5). Jenks no longer sees Dr. Stephenson and is seeking compensation for the horrific trauma she endured because of his treatment.
With organizations such as the False Memory Syndrome Foundation popping up around the globe, the awareness of FMS is spreading. False memories, in their most fundamental condition, are very real and existent in our world, as shown in the aforementioned psychology experiment. However, it is only when therapists, armed with the notion of Freudian "repressed-memories" and bizarre concepts like "body memories", implant unhealthy and false ideas into the brains of their patients that havoc ensues.

References

1)Recovered Memory Therapy and False Memory Syndrome, Recent Legal and Investigative Trends by Dr. John Hochman, M.D.
2) Memory and Reality: Website of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
3) BodytalkMagazine.com How Memory Works
4) The Skeptic's Dictionary False Memory
5) Salon.com Health and Body - The Story of Valerie Jenks
6) How Memory Really Works Freud's Notion of Repressed Memory

The Fourteen Abodes of Knowledge

By Sri Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Maha Swamiji

The fourteen "abodes" of knowledge are: the four vedas; the six Angas or limbs of the Vedas; Mimamsa, Nyaya, the Puranas and Dharmasastra. You must have seen at least references to the Vedas and the six Angas. The Tamil work Tevaram says: "Vedamodarangamayinanai". According to this devotional work Isvara is the form of the four Vedas and the six Angas.

The fourteen dharma-pramanas (authorities of dharma) are called "caturdasa-vidya". The well-known poetic work 'Naisadham' mentions that Nala was conversant with these fourteen branches of learning. The poet (Sriharsa ) plays on the word "caturdasa": he says that "Nala accorded caturdasa to the caturdas-vidya", meaning he gave the fourteen branches of learning four dasas: reading, understanding what is read, living according to the teachings contained in what is read, and making others also live in accordance with them.

Caturdasatvam Krtavan kutah svayam
Na vedmi vidyasu caturdasasvapi
--Naisadham, 1. 4

All religious knowledge is encompassed by these fourteen branches of learning.

There are yet four more vidyas. If you add to the fourteen already mentioned, you will have eighteen vidyas - astadasa-vidya which are all-inclusive. Of them, the fourteen already mentioned are directly concerned with dharma. The remaining four - Ayurveda, Arthasastra, Dhanurveda and Gandharvaveda - do not directly deal with dharma. They are not dharmasthanas (abodes of dharma) but they qualify to be vidyasthanas(abodes of knowledge). The first fourteen, as already mentioned, are both dharmasthanas and vidyasthanas (abodes of dharma as well as abodes of knowledge).

The dharmasthanas and vidyasthanas are together commonly known as the sastras. The word "sastra" means an order or commandment. We speak of a royal "sasana", meaning a royal "edict". There is a chapter in the Mahabaharaaata in which Bhisma expounds the ordinances of dharma to Yudhisthira and it is called "Anusasana-parva". Aiyanar is called "Sasta" because he keeps the hosts of Siva under his control (through his orders ). Works on sastras incorporate the ordinances that are calculated to keep us disciplined and ensure that we tread the right path.

While all the fourteen sastras are basic and authoritative texts, the Vedas are their crown. Just as Buddhism, Zoroastrianism (Zarathustrianism), Christianity and Islam have the Tripitaka, the Zend-Avesta, the Bible and the Qur'an respectively as their scriptures, we have the Vedas as our prime scripture.

Of the fourteen branches of learning the first four (the four Vedas) form the basis for the subsequent ten. Together they constitute the complete corpus of sastras on which our religion is founded.

நரம்புத் தளர்ச்சிக்கு சித்த மருத்துவம்

இன்றைய இளைய தலைமுறையினரை அதிகமாக பாதித்திருக்கும் பிணி இது. எழுதினால் கை

நடுங்கும். எதை எடுத்தாலும் ஒரு தடுமாற்றம், அடிக்கடி களைப்பு, சோர்வு, தூக்கமின்மை

இவைகள் முக்கிய அறிகுறிகளாகும். நரம்புத் தளர்ச்சி ஏற்பட்ட பெண்கள் மிகவும் பாதிக்கப்

படுகின்றார்கள். அடிக்கடி அழுவதும், சிரிப்பதும், பயித்தியம் போல் நடப்பதும் உண்டு.

எளிதில் சீரணமாகக் கூடிய உணவு வகைகள் காலை மாலை உணவுடன் இனிப்பு வகைகளை

சேர்த்துக் கொள்ளுதல் நல்ல உடைகள், வாசனைப் பொருட்கள் கொள்ளுதல் பூந்தோட்டங்களில்

கடற்கரையில் உலாவுவது என அவர்கள் மனோ நிலை எப்போதும் சந்தோஷ சூழலில்

வைத்திருப்பது அவசியம். அன்பும், அரவணைப்பும் அவர்களுக்கு ஆறுதல் தரும்.

சித்த மருந்து
----------------------
அமுக்கிராக் கிழங்கு – ஐந்நூறு கிராம்.
மிளகு – இருபத்தி ஐந்து கிராம்.
சுக்கு – இருபத்தி ஐந்து கிராம்.
அதிமதுரம் – இருபத்தி ஐந்து கிராம்.
ஏல அரிசி – இருபத்தி ஐந்து கிராம்.
சாதிக்காய் – இருபத்தி ஐந்து கிராம்.
தேன் – ஒரு கிலோ.
பால் – அரை லிட்டர்.

அமுக்கிராக் கிழங்கை நன்றாக இடித்துக் கொள்ளவும்.ஒரு மண் சட்டியில் பாலை ஊற்றவும்.நல்ல

ஒரு வெள்ளைத் துணியால் பானையின் வாயை கட்டி இடித்து வைத்துள்ள அமுக்கிராக் கிழங்குப்

பொடியை துணியின் மேல் பரப்பி பானையின் மூடியால் பொடியை மூடி சுமார் முப்பது

நிமிடங்கள் சிறு நெருப்பில் அவித்து எடுத்துக் கொள்ளவும்.

இரண்டு மணி நேரம் நிழலில் உலர்த்தி மீண்டும் இடித்து சலித்துக் கொள்ளவும். மற்ற

மருந்துகளை தனித்தனியாக் இடித்து சலித்து மேற்கண்ட அளவில் எடுக்கவும். எல்லா

பொடிகளையும் நன்கு கலக்கிக் கொள்ளவும்.

ஒரு கிலோ தேனை ஒரு சட்டியில் ஊற்றி [ சிறிய தணலில் ] மேற்கண்ட எல்லாப் பொடிகளையும்

சிறிதுசிறிதாகக் கொட்டி நன்கு கிளறி கிண்டி வைக்கவும்

உண்ணும் முறை
-----------------------------
காலை உணவு உண்டு ஒரு தேக்கரண்டி அளவும் இரவு உணவிற்குப் பின்னர் ஒரு தேக்கரண்டி

அளவும் உட்கொண்டு பால் அருந்தவும். நாற்பத்தெட்டு நாட்கள் உண்ண வேண்டும்.

பத்தியம்
--------------
குளிர்ந்த பானங்கள், மீன், கருவாடு போன்ற அசைவ உணவுகளை அறவேத் தவிர்க்கவும்.

Twelve Native American Astrological Signs and Their Meanings

The Native American tribes share a spiritual connection with nature, in the sense that nature plays a crucial role in deciphering the cosmos that consists of highly enigmatic elements in it. The Algonquin stance, "your birth date is the first drum beat of a fantastic ceremonial dance of life", just shows how the Native Americans associate life with a celebration, they celebrate and honor everything that breathes, be it human or animal. They observed the flora and the fauna, their strengths, their weaknesses, and sought powers from them to perform difficult tasks. For example, because a bat has the ability to see clearly in the dark, they (Native Americans) invoked its spirit to gain the power to see their prey clearly during a hunt in the night. When it comes to astrology, an animal totem was assigned to those born within a given time period. It is believed that these people share the traits of the animal symbol they are born under. The following section explains these zodiac animals, along with their western interpretation and meaning. Find out which is your birth animal!

Swastika: “An Aryan symbol (卐)

Planet X Nibiru and the Anunnaki

In his 1896 book, The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol and its Migrations, Thomas Wilson, former curator of the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology in the U.S. National Museum, wrote of the swastika: “An Aryan symbol (卐) used by the Aryan peoples before their dispersion through Asia and Europe. This is a fair subject for inquiry and might serve as an explanation how…as a sacred symbol…the Swastika might have been carried to the different peoples and countries in which we now find it by the splitting up of the Aryan peoples and their migrations and establishment in the various parts of Europe.” http://atlanteangardens.blogspot.com/…/scientific-research-…

In the Western world the swastika is synonymous with fascism, but it goes back thousands of years and has been used as a symbol of good fortune in almost every culture in the world. As more evidence emerges of its long pre-Nazi history in Europe, can this ancient sign ever shake off its evil associations?

In the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, swastika means "well-being". The symbol has been used by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains for millennia and is commonly assumed to be an Indian sign.

Early Western travellers to Asia were inspired by its positive and ancient associations and started using it back home. By the beginning of the 20th Century there was a huge fad for the swastika as a benign good luck symbol.

In his book The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? US graphic design writer Steven Heller shows how it was enthusiastically adopted in the West as an architectural motif, on advertising and product design.

"Coca-Cola used it. Carlsberg used it on their beer bottles. The Boy Scouts adopted it and the Girls' Club of America called their magazine Swastika. They would even send out swastika badges to their young readers as a prize for selling copies of the magazine," he says.

It was used by American military units during World War One and it could be seen on RAF planes as late as 1939. Most of these benign uses came to a halt in the 1930s as the Nazis rose to power in Germany.

The Nazi use of the swastika stems from the work of 19th Century German scholars translating old Indian texts, who noticed similarities between their own language and Sanskrit. They concluded that Indians and Germans must have had a shared ancestry and imagined a race of white god-like warriors they called Aryans.

What The Bacteria In Your Gut Have To Do With Your Physical And Mental Health

Strange but true fact: Our bodies are made of more bacteria than human cells, and the gut alone contains trillions of microbes (bacteria and fungi). In fact, it's estimated that the body is composed of 10 times more bacteria than human cells.

And the intestines are home to more bacteria than any other part of the body, including the skin. Now, scientists are devoting increasing amounts of time and resources to understanding the gut 'microbiome,' as the massive collection of bacteria and microbes is called -- and the influence it may exert on the brain and body. The National Institute of Health's Human Microbiome Project, for instance, is devoting millions of research dollars to understanding the microorganisms living within the human ecosystem.
Of particular concern among scientists and the public is the effect that gut flora may have on mental health, as a mounting body of researchsuggests that gut bacteria can have a significant impact on the way we think, feel and behave, and also on the development of neurological conditions. Last year, a major neuroscience symposium called the investigation of gut microbes a "paradigm shift" in brain science.
A number of diseases and disorders have been linked to abnormalities or instability in gut flora, and the microbiome is an important area of research for these conditions. However, it's important to note that while research has linked these conditions to alterations in the microbiome, it does not mean that in every case gut bacteria is the cause of the problem.

Here are a handful of physical and mental health problems that have been linked to imbalances and abnormalities gut bacteria.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/gut-bacteria-health_n_64805…

Danga Maari Oodhari - Anegan

'Timbuktu' is one of the most important movies ever made about terrorism

Violent jihadism as a governing ideology has been a significant feature of the global scene for nearly two decades.

There are certainly differences between say, the nature Al Shabaab's control over Somalia in the early 2010s, the Taliban state's governance of Afghanistan from 1996 until the US-led invasion in 2001, and ISIS's "caliphate" in the present day. 

But militant groups spurred by a combination of religious radicalism, violent disenchantment with the existing state system, revisionist philosophies of Islamic history, and a rejection of secularism and Enlightenment value systems have morphed into territorial political units with alarming frequency in recent years.

One such instance was in Mali in early 2012, when jihadists piggybacked on a long-simmering Tuareg autonomy movement — itself empowered by the collapse of Mali's government in the wake of a shocking military coup — in order to take control of several population centers in Mali's desert north. Among them was Timbuktu, a legendary center of trade and Islamic scholarship.

The jihadist occupation of Timbuktu was brutal but thankfully brief: In early 2013, a French-led coalition liberated the city after 10 months of militant control. Now, the rule of Al Qaeda-allied militants over the city is the topic of what might be the important movie of the past year.

The hypnotic and visually overwhelming "Timbuktu," the work of Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako and an Oscar nominee for best foreign language film, is an intimate and terrifying inquiry into one of the defining authoritarian ideologies of the 21st century, as told from the perspective of the people who are actually suffering under its yoke. (The film is currently playing in New York and LA and will open in various other US cities in February and March.)

US movie audiences have usually met jihadists through the lenses of American sniper rifles, or lying prone in front of CIA interrogators. "Timbuktu" is hardly the only movie that's portrayed them as political and social actors. "Osama," a multi-national production about a girl living in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan that won the 2004 Golden Globe award for best foreign-language film, and Iranian director Moshen Makhmalbaf's highly regarded "Kandahar," about a Afghan woman who sneaks into Taliban Afghanistan to try to stop her sister from committing suicide, succeed in giving viewers a first-hand look at the societies that jihadists create and the horrors this visits upon the people trapped in them.

In the wake of ISIS's takeover of a Belgium-sized slice of the Middle East, "Timbuktu" has more immediate resonance than either of those films. The movie opens with a pickup truck of fighters flying a black flag nearly identical to ISIS's. As the opening credits roll, the fighters eviscerate a row of traditional figurines in a hail of machine-gun fire.

But the firmest sign that jihadist rule is something external, alien, and deeply unwanted comes in the next scene, when gun-toting fighters enter a mud-brick mosque without taking their shoes off. They tell the imam that they have come to wage jihad. The imam replies that in Timbuktu, people wage jihad (which has the double meaning of spiritual reflection and self-purification, in addition to earthly holy war) with their minds and not with guns.

The next hour and a half is a grisly survey of what happened when this 1400-year-old precedent was inverted.

The jihadists ban music — one of the most celebrated aspects of Malian culture — and then whip violators in public. They ban soccer, and then break up a group of children miming a game in silent protest. The jihadists speak a smattering of local languages and broken Arabic; their leader bans smoking only to sneak cigarettes under the cover of the town's surrounding sand dunes.

In one of the more illustrative scenes, a female fish seller is told by one jihadist that women can no longer appear in public without wearing gloves. She explains to him that she can't work unless she's barehanded and then dares the fighter to cut her hands off on the spot.

In "Timbuktu," the jihadists are power-tripping, thuggish and hypocritical. They are in the city to create a totally new kind of society and revel in their own insensitivity to local concerns.

But crucially they are not entirely outsiders, and some of the film's most affecting scenes involves a local Tuareg who joins with the jihadists occupying the town, a reminder that there are local dynamics at play. Just as importantly, the film hints at the context of state collapse and social chaos that allowed the jihadists to take over in the first place.

The movie's primary narrative follows a Tuareg herder who accidentally kills a fisherman from a different ethnic group during an argument over his cows' access to drinking water along a disputed riverbank. The film's central conflict encapsulates the unresolved questions of ethnicity and resources that kept northern Mali in a state of crisis that the jihadists later exploited.

The herder's treatment at the hands of Timbuktu's new overlords depicts imposition of an an outside ideology. But the killing is itself is a pointed example of how social turmoil can feed into a violent, totalitarian mania seemingly without warning. It harkens back to ISIS's swift takeover of Iraq this past summer, a national-level instance of the dynamics that "Timbuktu" manages to boil down to an intimate, dramatic scale.

"Timbuktu" has a happy ending. Even if it isn't depicted in the movie, the city was eventually liberated from jihadist control. The film depicts a now-extinct regime. 

But the nightmare of "Timbuktu" is far from over. The liberation of the areas that ISIS rules will come at some indeterminate future date, and parts of Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Nigeria are still under the control of extremists whose ideologies are not categorically different from what's depicted in the film.

"Timbuktu" is maybe the best cinematic depiction ever made of what millions of people around the world are suffering through.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/timbuktu-is-one-of-the-most-important-movies-ever-made-about-terrorism-2015-2#ixzz3RUwLuLcX

New bionic leaf harnesses bacteria to convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into fuel.

Harvard researchers have announced a method to turn sunlight and air into isopropanol (C3H8O). While mainly used as a solvent and in pharmaceuticals, isopropanol can also be used as a liquid fuel for transportation, or converted into even more convenient fuels.

Plants have been transforming sunlight into things that we can use for fuel for 1.6 billion years. However, with a few exceptions, they are still only about 1% efficient. Solar cells do much better, but the energy produced must either be used immediately or stored in ways that can be problematic. 

To address this, researchers are trying to find ways to turn the energy generated from sunlight into fuels that are easy to store. In 2011, Professor Daniel Nocera announced what he called the “artificial leaf,” a silicon strip coated with catalysts on each side. When placed in water and exposed to sunlight, the leaf splits the H2O to release oxygen on one side and hydrogen on the other.

Last year, Nocera boasted of achieving 7% efficiency, but a problem remains. The fuel that Nocera's leaf produces is hydrogen, which is very expensive, and sometimes dangerous, to store and transport. As he then admitted to The New York Times, “If I give you a canister of hydrogen that we got from the artificial leaf, you can’t use it right away.” Nocera's hope was that progress would be made in the quest for fuel cells that turn hydrogen back into energy in a controlled way.

Now, however, Nocera is part of a project taking a very different approach. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nocera and Professor Pamela Silver announce what they call a bionic leaf, one that combines Nocera's catalysts with bacteria that turn the hydrogen into something easier to handle.

"The catalysts I made are extremely well adapted and compatible with the growth conditions you need for living organisms like a bacterium," says Nocera. Silver added the bacterium Ralstonia eutropha, which uses the hydrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as food to multipy.

MIT Professor Anthony Sinskey has previously demonstrated that R. eutropha can be engineered to make isopropanol as it grows, generating a fuel we can use. When the isopropanol is burnt, it will release CO2 into the atmosphere, but no more than is removed by the bacteria in the growth process.

So far, however, less than a seventh of the hydrogen produced gets turned into fuel by the bacteria. Silver is not arguing that the product is ready for commercialization, saying, "This is a proof of concept that you can have a way of harvesting solar energy and storing it in the form of a liquid fuel.” Nocera is even more upbeat. "We're almost at a 1% efficiency rate of converting sunlight into isopropanol," he says. "There have been 2.6 billion years of evolution, and Pam and I working together a year and a half have already achieved the efficiency of photosynthesis."

thanks http://www.iflscience.com/

Pyramids Around the Worlds

Borobudur, Indonesia:

Until today, no one knows for sure when and why it was built, nor the reason for its complete abandonment hundreds of years ago. Some scholars believe that Borobudur is actually a giant textbook of Buddhism, as its base reliefs tell the story of the life of Buddha and the principles of his teachings. To “read,” a pilgrim must make his way through nine platforms and walk a distance of over 2 miles.

In the 19th century, Dutch occupiers of Indonesia found a massive ancient ruin deep in the jungles of Java. What they discovered was the complex of Borobudur, a gigantic structure built with nearly 2 million cubic feet (55,000 m³) of stones. The temple has nearly 2,700 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues.

தனக்கு இசை கற்றுத் தந்த குருநாதர் தனராஜ் மாஸ்டரிடம் விருது பெறும் இளையராஜா...

‪Study English - IELTS Preparation‬ DVD3 - P7 - The Speaking Test

பொதுவாக துறவு என்பது சாத்தியமானதுதானா?

யோகம், தியானம், கடவுள் பசி, தாகம், காமம்
இது ஒரு புறம் இருக்க, பொதுவாக துறவு என்பது சாத்தியமானதுதானா?
மனிதன் பிறந்ததே காமத்தில்தானே அப்படி இருக்க அதைத் துறவு எப்படி சாத்தியமாகும்?
இது குறித்து மருத்துவர்களிடம் கேட்டால், பிரம்மச்சாரிகளாக இருப்பது அரிதினும் அரிது என்கிறார்கள்.
உளவியலாளர்கள் பசி, தாகம், காமம் இவை மூன்றும் மனிதனின் அடிப்படைத் தேவைகள் என்கிறார்கள்.
பசியையும் தாகத்தையும் நாம் நினைத்துக் கட்டுப்படுத்த முடியாது. ஒரு குறிப்பிட்ட நேர இடைவெளியில் பசியும் தாகமும் வந்தே தீரும். இதில் பசியையும் தாகத்தையும் அவசியம் என்ற கேட்டகிரியில் வைத்து விட்டு, காமத்தை மட்டும் சமூகம் ஒழுக்கக் கேட்டகிரியில் வைத்திருக்கிறது.
தண்ணீருக்கு உயிரில்லை. சாப்பாட்டுக்கும் அப்படித்தான். நாம் விரும்பும்போது சாப்பிடலாம். அவை இரண்டுமே அஃறிணைகள் என்பதால் நாம் சாப்பிடும் போது அவற்றால் மறுக்க முடியாது. ஆனால் ஆணும் பெண்ணும் அப்படி அல்ல. ஒரு ஆணுக்கு ஒரு பெண்ணின் மீது காமம் வருமானால், அதைத் தீர்த்துக் கொள்ள அந்தப் பெண் ஒப்புக்கொள்ள வேண்டும். அதைப்போலத்தான் பெண்ணுக்கும். மேற்குறிப்பிட்ட சாப்பாட்டைப் போலவோ தண்ணீரைப் போலவே இவர்கள் அஃறிணைகள் இல்லாமல் உயர்திணைகளாக இருப்பதால் விரும்பியபடி சாப்பிட முடியாது. மறுக்கவும் இடம் உண்டு. அதனால்தான் ஒழுக்கக் கோட்பாடுகள் வந்தன.
அது தவிர ஒரு ஆணுக்கு தன் பெயர் சொல்லும் வாரிசு தேவை. அவனது மனைவியானவள் தன் சவுகரியத்திற்கு எங்கு வேண்டுமானாலும் யாருடன் வேண்டுமானாலும் கூடலாம் என சுதந்திரம் இருக்குமானால்....பிறக்கும் பிள்ளை இவனுடையதுதானா என்பதை எப்படிக் கண்டுபிடிப்பது?
இந்தச் சிக்கல் நெடுநாட்களுக்கு முன்பு மனிதனுக்கு ஏற்பட்டு, தான் சேர்த்து வைத்த சொத்தை தொடர்ந்து தனது வாரிசே அனுபவிக்க வேண்டும் என நினைத்த ஆண், பெண்ணுக்கு கற்பு எனும் கருத்தாக்கத்தை போதித்தான்.
கற்பு, ஒழுக்கம், கட்டுப்பாடு என்று ஒருபுறம் சமூகம் அனைத்துக் கதவுகளையும் சாத்தி வைத்து மூச்சுத்திணற வைத்துக்கொண்டிருக்க இணையதளம், சினிமா, சின்னத்திரை, பத்திரிகை என அனைத்து ஊடகங்களும் கட்டுப்பாட்டை அவரவருக்கு முடிந்த வரையில் கொஞ்சம் கொஞ்சம் தளர்த்தி ஆசுவாசப்படுத்திக்கொண்டிருக்கின்றன. கோயில் திருவிழாக்களில் நடக்கும் தெருக்கூத்து, கரகாட்டம், ஆடல் பாடல் என அனைத்து நிகழ்ச்சிகளிலும் காமம் இல்லாமல் இருப்பதில்லை. இவை எல்லாமே மனிதனை ஆசுவாசப்படுத்தும் முயற்சிகள்தான். அப்படி இருக்க சாமியார்கள் மட்டும் அவர் ஆணாக இருக்கட்டும் அல்லது பெண்ணாக இருக்கட்டும் முற்றிலும் காமவயப்படாமலே இருந்து விட முடியுமா? இயேசு கிறிஸ்துவில் ஆரம்பித்து, நம்மூரைச் சேர்ந்த ராமகிருஷ்ண பரமஹம்சர், விவேகானந்தர், கிறிஸ்தவப் பாதிரியார்கள், கன்னியாஸ்திரிகள் என அத்தனை பேருமே நமக்கு ஆச்சரியம் அளிக்கிறார்கள்.
புத்தனையாவது ஒரு வழியில் சேர்த்துக் கொள்ளலாம். ஏனெனில் புத்தன் சித்தார்த்தனாக அரண்மனையில் இருக்கும் போது அத்தனை விளையாட்டுக்களையும் விளையாடி முடித்து விட்டு அதற்குப் பிறகுதான் துறவியாகிறான். சரி அந்த சந்தோஷம் சலித்து விட்டது. அடுத்து என்ன என்ற கேள்விக்குப் போய்விட்டார் போல என்றாவது நினைக்கலாம்.
ராமகிருஷ்ண பரமஹம்சருக்கு மனைவி உண்டு. விவேகானந்தர் போன்றவர்களெல்லாம் எப்படி? குறைந்த பட்சம் சுயஇன்பமாவது அவர்கள் மேற்கொண்டிருக்க வேண்டும் அல்லது மடை மாற்றம் என்று சொல்வார்கள் அதுவாவது நடந்திருக்க வேண்டும். ராமலிங்க அடிகளார் விஷயத்தில் அதுதான் நடந்தது. அவர் கடவுளை காதலியாகவோ காதலனாகவோ பாவித்து பாடல்கள் பாடிக்கொண்டிருந்தார். அவருக்குள் இருந்த காம உணர்வை பக்தி உணர்வாக மாற்றும் முயற்சி அது.
ஆதிசங்கர பகவத் பாதர் எழுதிய நூல்களில் சௌந்தர்ய லஹரீயும் ஒன்று. இதன் தமிழ் அர்த்தம் “அழகு வெள்ளம்“ என்பதாகும். இந்த ஸ்தோத்திரப் பாடல்களில் பார்வதிதேவியின் அழகு வர்ணிக்கப் படுகிறது. அழகு என்பதை விட பார்வதி தேவியின் அங்கங்களை வர்ணித்துள்ளார் என்று சொல்வதே பொருத்தம்.
அமிர்தரஸம் நிறைந்த இரு மாணிக்கக் கும்பம் போன்ற மார்பகங்களில் அழகான இரத்தினங்கள் மின்னுகின்றது என்றெல்லாம் சங்கரரின் வர்ணனை போகிறது.
இன்னொரு பாடலில் தேவியின் தொப்புளை (உந்தி) ஸ்திரோ கங்காவர்த்த என்கிறார். அதாவது தேவியின் தொப்புள் கங்கையின் நீர்ச்சுழி போன்று உள்ளது என்கிறார்.
அபிராமிபட்டர் எழுதிய அபிராமி அந்தாதியில் உள்ள பாடல் வரிகளில் பலவற்றை நாம் விளக்கி எழுத முடியாத நிலை. இடங்கொண்ட கொங்கை இணை கொண்டு விம்மி இளகி இறுகி.... என்று வரும் பாடலில் உள்ள கடைசிவரிகளை எப்படி எழுத முடியும். வாசகர்கள் அந்நூலை வாங்கிப் படித்தால் புரியும்
ஒரு பெண் கடவுளை ஒரு ஆண் பக்தர் (அதிலும் சங்கரர் ஒரு துறவி) இப்படி வர்ணிக்கிறார் என்றால் அதில் பக்தி இருக்கிறதா? காமம் இருக்கிறதா-?
.உன்னைத்தான் பாட வந்தேன்
வண்ணமயில் வேல்முருகா
உன்னைக் கண்டு மயங்கி விட்டேன்
என்ன சொல்லிப் பாடுவதோ
என்று சூலமங்கலம் சகோதரிகள் பாடுவதில் வெறும் பக்திமட்டும்தான் இருக்கிறதா என்பது யோசிக்க வேண்டிய விஷயமல்லவா? மீரா கண்ணன் மீது கொண்டது வெறும் பக்திதானா? அந்தப் பெண்ணுக்கு இயல்பாக இருந்த காதல் உணர்வை பக்தியாக வெளிப்படுத்தினாள் என்று சொல்லலாம்தானே? ஆண்டாளும் அப்படித்தான்.
அகம் புறம் என்று இரண்டு இலக்கிய வடிவங்கள் தமிழில் சொல்லப்படுகின்றன. பக்தி இலக்கியத்தில் புறம் போல பேசப்பட்ட அகம் உண்டு. அது அறம் போலப் பேசப்பட்ட அகம். கடவுள் மீது கொண்ட பக்தி எனும் அறம் என்று அதை நாம் சொல்லிக்கொண்டாலும், அதில் இருந்த உணர்வுகள் அக உணர்வுகளே.
ஆக காம உணர்வுகளையோ காதல் உணர்வுகளையோ முற்றிலும் ஒழித்துக்கட்டுவது என்பது முடியாத காரியம். உயிரினங்களின் தோற்றமே அதனால் வந்தது எனும் போது அதை ஒழித்துக்கட்டுவது என்பது இயற்கைக்கு மாறான விஷயமல்லவா? காம உணர்வை அடக்குபவர்களுக்கு மனநலச் சிக்கல்கள் நிறைய வரும். குடும்பங்களில் பல பெண்கள் சிடுமூஞ்சகளாக இருப்பதற்கு அவர்களது செக்ஸ் வாழ்வில் திருப்தி இல்லாமல் இருப்பதுதான் காரணம் என்கிறார்கள் உளவியல் நிபுணர்கள்.
காசிப் பக்கம் அகோரிகள் என்ற சாமியார்கள் 24 மணிநேரமும் கஞ்சா போதையில் இருப்பார்களாம். அவர்களுக்கு செக்ஸ் உணர்வு வர வாய்ப்பில்லை. ஏனெனில் அவர்களது உடல் ஆரோக்கியமானது அல்ல. உடலை ஆரோக்கியமாக வைத்திருக்கும் துறவிகளுக்கு எப்படி காம உணர்வு இல்லாமல் இருக்கும். அதை அடக்குவதற்கு அல்லது வெளியேற்றுவதற்கு பல்வேறு விதமான தியானம், யோகம் போன்ற தொழில் நுட்பங்கள் இருப்பதாகச் சொல்கின்றனர். அவர்களுக்கு ஒரு துளி விந்து கூட கனவில் கூட வெளிப்படாதாம். அவர்கள் அந்த சக்தியை சேமிக்கிறார்கள். அதை சிற்றின்ப நிலையில் இருந்து பேரின்ப நிலைக்கான சக்தியாக உருமாற்றுகிறார்கள் என்றெல்லாம் கூறுகிறார்கள்.
எதற்கு இவ்வளவு பிரயத்தனம்?
துறவிகளுக்கு அதிகாரம் கிடைக்கிறது. மனித சமூகம் தன்னை கடவுளாகப் பார்க்கிறது என்கிற எண்ணம் அவர்களது ஈகோவிற்கு தீனி போடுகிறது. அந்த அதிகாரத்தை பயன்படுத்தி மனித குலத்திற்கு நல்ல விஷயங்களை சொன்ன துறவிகளும் உண்டு. புத்தன் தனக்கு கிடைத்த அதிகாரத்தை அன்பைப் போதிக்க பயன்படுத்தினான். வாழ்க்கை அநித்தியத்தை எடுத்துச் சொல்ல பயன்படுத்தினான். விவேகானந்தர், தன்னம்பிக்கையை வளர்க்க பயன்படுத்தினார். இயேசு கிறிஸ்து அன்பை எளிமையை தன்னடக்கத்தை போதிக்க பயன்படுத்தினார். அவர்களை தேடிச் சென்றவர்களும் சுயநலமில்லாதவர்களாக இருந்தனர். இப்போது அப்படி அல்ல. லௌகீக வாழ்க்கையில் உள்ள நெருக்கடி உலகமயம் காரணமாக மனிதனுக்கு ஏற்பட்டுள்ள மன அழுத்தம், போட்டி மிகுந்த உலகம் தொடர்ச்சியாக தொடுக்கும் தாக்குதலில் முதல் இடத்திற்கு வரவேண்டுமே என்ற தீராத பயம், பதற்றம் போன்றவை மனிதனுக்கு மன அழுத்தத்தை உருவாக்குகின்றன. இந்த மன அழுத்தக்காரர்கள் ரிலாக்சேஷனுக்காக சாமியார்களை தேடிச் செல்கின்றனர்.
அவர்களிடம் ஏராளமான பணம் உண்டு. நிம்மதி இல்லை. பணத்தை கொடுத்து நிம்மதியை வாங்க தீர்மானிக்கின்றனர். பணத்தை வாங்கிக் கொண்டு நிம்மதியை கொடுப்பதற்கு நவீன சாமியார்கள் தயார். நித்யானந்தர் போன்றவர்களெல்லாம் அந்த வகையைச் சேர்ந்தவர்கள்தான்.
ஆரம்பத்தில் யோகம், தியானம், கடவுள் என்ற மட்டும் சொல்லிக்கொண்டிருந்த சாமியார்கள்தான் இருந்தார்கள். அதன்பிறகு சாமியார்களில் பெரும் படிப்பாளிகள் தோன்றி விட்டனர். எனக்குத் தெரிந்து ஓஷோதான் அதை ஆரம்பித்து வைத்தார். (ஆனால் ஓஷோ நேர்மையானவர். அவர் நான் செக்சுக்கு எதிரி என்றெல்லாம் சொல்லி ஊரை ஏமாற்றவில்லை. அது இயல்பு. அதன் உள்ளே சென்றுதான் அதைக்கடக்க வேண்டுமே தவிர, அதைத் தொடாமலேயே நான் அதைக் கடந்து விட்டேன் என்று சொல்லக் கூடாது என்றுதான் அவர் சொன்னார்) உளவியல், அரசியல், விஞ்ஞானம், தத்துவம், இலக்கியம் என்று சகல துறைகளையும் படிக்க ஆரம்பித்து விட்ட இந்த சாமியார்கள் அற்புதமான பேச்சாற்றலை உடையவர்களாகவும் இருக்கின்றனர்.
இவர்கள் கற்று வைத்திருக்கும் அத்தனை வித்தைகளும் கடவுள் எனும் கருத்தாக்கத்திற்கு சம்பந்தமில்லாதது. மனதை ஆரோக்கியமாக வைத்திருக்க தேவையான வித்தைகள் அவை. இந்த வித்தைகள்தான் அவர்களை கோடிக்கணக்கான சொத்துக்களுக்கு அதிபதியாக்குகின்றன.
சர்க்கஸ் கலைஞர்கள் பல்வேறு வித்தைகள் கற்று வைத்துள்ளனர். அதுபோன்ற ஒரு வித்தையாகத்தான் நாம் பிரம்மச்சாரியத்தையும் பார்க்க வேண்டும். நம்மால் முடியாததை சில பயிற்சிகள் எடுத்து அவர்கள் செய்கின்றனர்.
இல்லறத்தை துறந்து 24 மணிநேரமும் வருடம் 365 நாட்களும் ஒரு நொடிப்பொழுது கூட காம எண்ணமே இல்லாமல் ஒருவரால் இருக்க முடிகிறது என்று சொன்னால் இருந்து விட்டுப்போகட்டுமே அதனால் என்ன என்ற எண்ணம் நமக்கு வரவேண்டும்.
ஆகா! அற்புதம்! எங்களால் கல்யாணம் இல்லாமல் இருக்க முடியவில்லை. ஆனால் இந்தத் துறவிகள் அத்தனை ஆசைகளையும் அடக்கிக் கொண்டு இருக்கிறார்களே என ஆச்சரியப்படாலாம். கைதட்டிப் பாராட்டலாம். அதற்கு மேல் அவர்களைக் கடவுள்களாக்கி கொண்டாடுவதிலும் அவர்களுக்கு அடிமையாவதிலும்தான் ஆபத்து இருக்கிறது.
அவர்கள் துறவிகளாக (உண்மையாகவோ போலியாகவோ) இருப்பதனால் காமத்தை வென்றவர்கள் நாங்கள் என்று கர்வத்தோடு சொல்லிக்கொண்டு அலைகிறார்கள். நம்மைப் போன்ற அப்பாவிகளுக்கு, “சே அந்தப்பாவத்தை தினந்தோறும் நாம் செய்து கொண்டிருக்கிறோமே. அற்புதமான அந்தத் துறவிகள் அந்தப் பாவக்கடலைத் தொடுவதே இல்லையே என்று குற்ற உணர்வு வந்து விடுகிறது. குற்றஉணர்வுக்கு ஆட்பட்ட மனிதர்களை கையாள்வது சுலபம். எப்படி ஒரு அற்புதமான ஏற்பாடு பாருங்கள். இயற்கையான ஒரு உணர்வை பாவம் என்று சொல்லி விடுவது? அதை மீற முடியாமல் தவிக்கும் மனிதர்களை அற்ப ஜீவிகளைப் போலப் பார்ப்பது. அதன் மூலம் அவர்களை அடிமைகளாக்கி வெற்றி கொள்வது. இதுதான் துறவானது காலம் காலமாக செய்து வைத்திருக்கும் ஏற்பாடு.
இந்த ஏற்பாடுதான் போப்பில் இருந்து ஆரம்பித்து நித்யானந்தர் வரையில் அனைத்து சாமியார்களுக்கும் அதிகாரத்தை கொடுக்கிறது. அந்த அதிகாரம் அவர்களுக்கு சகல சவுகரியங்களையும் வழங்குகிறது. எனவே நாம்தான் ஜாக்கிரதையாக இருக்க வேண்டும்.

1908 elegance ...

Apparently illiterate farmers can do wonders in the field of technology and research.

Farmer Siddappa G Hullajogi from Karnataka never went to a school but designed a windmill to generate power. "I use the electricity from windmill in my fields and my house," he said.

The farmer first thought of alternative power when the electricity office refused to provide electricity to his village as it was far from the nearest powered village. His ideas came from windmills installed near his fields by private power companies.

Siddappa used waste materials to design the windmill. He fabricated blades using tin sheets, and he used wood and copper wires to make a propeller.

The windmill operates a borewell to irrigate Siddappa’s farm. It is also used to power bulbs in the homes of the farmer and his brother. “The windmill generates power to light up 10 bulbs of 60 watts and two TV sets in my home and my brother’s,” says Siddappa.

Image Courtesy: colorsmagazine. com