BLESSINGS

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels.My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, 'This Is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are Received.' I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section. The angel then said to me, 'This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them.' I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to EarthFinally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the Door of a very small station To my great surprise, only one angel was Seated there, idly doing nothing. 'This is the Acknowledgment Section,' My angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed 'How Is it that there is no work going on here?' I asked.'So sad,' the angel sighed. 'After people receive the blessings that they asked For, very few send back acknowledgments.' 'How does one acknowledge God's blessings?' I asked.'Simple,' the angel answered. Just say, 'Thank you, Lord.''What blessings should they acknowledge? ' I asked. 'If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy.' 'And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity. 'Also. ' If you woke up this morning with more health than illness ... You are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day.''If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... You are ahead of 700 million people in the world.' ;'If your parents are still alive and still married ...you are very rare.''If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you're unique to all those in doubt and despair.'Ok, what now? How can I start? Ifyou can read this message, you just received a double blessing in thatsomeone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.Have a good day, count your blessings, and if you want, pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are. 'Thank you Lord, for giving me the ability To share this message and for giving me so many wonderful people to share it with.'

What Freedom Means to Me

My warm HELLO to all.. For past couple of days I have been reading blogs on iTimes like Nani's blog on convenient marriage and Somesh's blog on Samajwadi Party Manifesto and surfing channels with politicians debating on some or the other issue lead me to write this blog.. I plan to write it as and when ideas come to my mind.. Your comments and opinions, ideas and beliefs are welcome.

What is freedom? It is difficult question to answer categorically. Does it mean absolute liberty to do as one pleases? Complete non resilient to pursue any fancy that strikes one? Is such a free existence possible at all for a human being? Freedom, is, indeed a nebulous concept, laying itself open to several interpretations, even conflicting ones.

There are champions of freedom who vehemently oppose any form of social control. Thoreau at least allows the need of some government - " the best government is the least government" - but there are others who denounce any sort of organisation at all. But given the imperfect nature of human beings, surely such freedom would degenerate into anarchy and finally to the survival of the fittest in the sense of brute power. It would result in tyranny of the weak by the strong.

At the other extreme are those who are thoroughly suspicious of individual freedom. They have such a low opinion of human freedom that they can not allowan individual the right to choose. Any deviation from a rigid social average is seen as a threat to the society. Social equilibrium is the end -all to which individual initiative must perforce, be sacrificed. But such a society will soon lose its vibrant dynamism, become ponderous and static and finally collapse under the weight of its own rigidity.

The extreme thus can harm society. But one may deduce that freedom is a social concept. If human beings lived as individual entities, the meaning of freedom has no importance. It is because they live in groups, in societies, that the concept of individual freedom needs to be understood.

Exploring life

Jean Paul Sartre: "Everything has been figured out, except how to live."

Robert Frost: "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

Oscar Wilde: "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

Tell me what is your take on this??