Indian Thoughts- Dr Alok Pande

Savitri to Yama: I am greater than you for you are limited by time while I am the unborn eternal. So you have to give what I ask of you.
So when one knows one's truth, death is powerless.
All life is an experience directed towards the blossoming of the seed of truth, inherent in us.
Pain is not the result of an evil deed.Pain is the instrument of an evolving apparatus.
The body is an act of the soul, an instrument of the soul.
Man holds within himself, not a chained beast, but an imprisoned God.
Maya is not evil. She measures out the immeasurable in measurable bits for us to grow.

Heard this yesterday, at a marvelous talk on Indian thought by Dr. Alok Pande

Janamashtami- A Memory

Just after the Bombay riots in 1993, I was traveling in a BEST bus. Sitting behind me were two Muslims, a young man and a middle aged woman. They were talking about the wanton destruction of their homes by Hindu rioters. The woman said that the rioters had twisted the ceiling fans out of shape after looting. And what could they have gained by that? They were contemplating moving out of their present location and shifting to a safer place.Then the young man asked her"Aaj chhutti kyon hai?"(Why is it a holiday today?). And she replied"Aaj Janmashtami hai. Aaj Govinda aaya tha."(Today is Janmashtami. Govinda came today) For me, that somehow symbolizes India. That indescribable something which holds us together despite all the strife and hurt which happens. And on every Janmashtami, I remember that.

On Pasha and Doing Things

We met Pasha yesterday, my friend and I, just outside Karunashraya, on Old Airport Road. He was blind and was selling agarbattis. The pavement there is dangerous as it runs over a drain, is uneven and broken at places. So we bought some of his stuff and tried to steer him to a safer place. He had come in a bus from Chamrajpet, and he got three rupees for each packet he sold. As we walked with him, some shopkeepers and roadside vendors bought his agarbattis. After some time, we left him and watched from a distance, concerned, how he would manage, blind, alone, on a crowded road. And we saw him being helped by people, one after the other. His agarbatti packets were selling briskly as well.
And so we learnt from him that when one embarks on some work, trusting God, trusting destiny, things are taken care of. We learnt from him not to let our perceived shortcomings stop us from taking up new challenges. And we learnt courage and dignity.

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Tuition

I grew up in a small colony, where tuition was unheard of. Neighborhood uncles and aunties helped us with our difficulties. No monetary transactions involved.I remember evenings,waiting 
at Pandurangaiah uncle's place . He was head of the finance dept. He would come home, hurriedly change and would sit with me teaching accounts.And he was thrilled when I went with a box of sweets and told him my marks. Vaswani uncle helped me with stats. Vishwanathan uncle and Meenakshi aunty taught chemistry when I missed school because of chicken pox.Those were the days and those were the people. Now I realize how fortunate I was to grow up with such role models!