Truth & Creation

We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality”

--Ayn Rand



Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden terrritory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.
His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.
And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.
Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.
But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.
We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.
Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways—by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.
The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.
The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

The Second Handers....

"Most People are other people" -Oscar Wilde

I look at people around me , or what is left of them...and wonder..What is our aim in life? “Greatness”... In other people’s eyes. Fame, admiration , envy--all that which comes from others. Others dictate our convictions. Others are our motive power and our prime concern. We don’t want to be great, but rather to be thought great. We borrow from others in order to make an impression on others. Only that is when is that we are truely selfish, or rather i prefer calling it selfless(negetive)....when there is an absence of self. We know ourselves to be dishonest, but others think that we are honest and we derive our self-respect from that, second-hand.
The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim is to make money. Now I don’t see anything evil in a desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end. If a man wants it for a personal purpose--to invest in his industry, to create, to study, to travel, to enjoy luxury--he’s completely moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others. They’re second-handers. Look at our so-called cultural endeavors. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that means nothing at all to him--and the people who listen and don’t give a damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All second-handers." A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn’t need it."
You can fake virtue for an audience. But how can you fake it in your own eyes. They run from it. They spend their lives running. That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: ’Is this true?’ They ask: ’Is this what others think is true?’ Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don’t think through another’s brain and you don’t work through another’s hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life. Second-handers have no sense of reality.Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another. Not an entity, but a relation--anchored to nothing. That’s the emptiness I couldn’t understand in people. Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational process. Motion without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility. The second-hander acts, but the source of his actions is scattered in every other living person. It’s everywhere and nowhere and you can’t reason with him. He’s not open to reason. You can’t speak to him--he can’t hear.
I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I’ve always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I’ve always recognized it at once--and it’s the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters.

The Gettysburg address

On June 1, 1865, Senator Charles Sumner commented on what is now considered the most famous speech by President Abraham Lincoln. In his eulogy on the slain president, he called it a "monumental act." He said Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."


the speech goes like this....


Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

D DAY

"There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of others much is expected. This generation has a rendezvous with destiny."

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

June 6 dawns,and D-DAY once more returns to Normandy.The tide is low and the sand hard underfoot.There right next to the omaha and utah beaches of France, that had once been crisscrossed with trenches and mud,are intermingled regiments of bones resting filfully in shallow graves beneath the soil.

And there in a whisper just beneath the wind that howled across the terrain....one hears voices...the puzzled voices of boys.....boys no older than 16...those who had a bright life ahead ,ones who had wishes to be fulfilled,who probably wanted to be someone totally different.There were ones who had never known the insides of a woman,who never had children,who had never grown old...SEVEN MILLION voices asking in unision the unanswered question,that was an answer in itself...WHY??

The Battle of Normandy began commencing the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.The Normandy invasion, codenamed Operation Overlord, still remains the largest seaborne invasion in History.....
It involved 1,56000 troops crossing the english channel from United Kingdom to Normandy beach in occupied France. The Allied forces which saw combat on June 6 and faced the horrors of Hitler's Atlantic Wall included Canada, parts of free France, United Kindom and the United States Of America. Most of the above countries also provided air and naval support, as did the Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force and the Royal Norwegian Navy.

The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks, naval bombardments, an early morning amphibious landing and during the evening the remaining elements of the parachute divisions landed.

THE ATLANTIC WALL:
Standing in the way of the Allies was the English Channel, a crossing which had eluded the Spanish Armada and Napoleon Bonaparte's Navy. Compounding the invasion efforts was the extensive Atlantic Wall, ordered by Hitler in his Directive 51. Believing that any forthcoming landings would be timed for high tide (this caused the landings to be timed for low tide), Rommel had the entire wall fortified with tank top turrets and extensive barbed wire, and laid a million mines to deter landing craft.How ever the fortifications allowed the Germans to literally mow down the troops coming out of the amphibious landing crafts. There are german soldiers who claim to have shot down thousands.

D-Day, had thrilled much of the world-those whose military forces precipitated the battle, as well as those who waited in bondage for their freedom. A psychological stroke of great impact, the invasion fulfilled an Allied promise to return to the Continent and to liberate the people occupied and oppressed by the Third Reich. It challenged the German political domination over much of Europe and signified the probable final act of the war.

Sarfaroshi ki tamanna by Ram Prasad Bismil

सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है
देखना है ज़ोर कितना बाज़ुए कातिल में है

करता नहीं क्यूँ दूसरा कुछ बातचीत,
देखता हूँ मैं जिसे वो चुप तेरी महफ़िल में है
ए शहीद-ए-मुल्क-ओ-मिल्लत मैं तेरे ऊपर निसार,
अब तेरी हिम्मत का चरचा गैर की महफ़िल में है
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

वक्त आने दे बता देंगे तुझे ए आसमान,
हम अभी से क्या बतायें क्या हमारे दिल में है
खैंच कर लायी है सब को कत्ल होने की उम्मीद,
आशिकों का आज जमघट कूच-ए-कातिल में है
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

है लिये हथियार दुशमन ताक में बैठा उधर,
और हम तैय्यार हैं सीना लिये अपना इधर.
खून से खेलेंगे होली गर वतन मुश्किल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

हाथ जिन में हो जुनून कटते नही तलवार से,
सर जो उठ जाते हैं वो झुकते नहीं ललकार से.
और भड़केगा जो शोला-सा हमारे दिल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

हम तो घर से निकले ही थे बाँधकर सर पे कफ़न,
जान हथेली पर लिये लो बढ चले हैं ये कदम.
जिन्दगी तो अपनी मेहमान मौत की महफ़िल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

यूँ खड़ा मौकतल में कातिल कह रहा है बार-बार,
क्या तमन्ना-ए-शहादत भी किसि के दिल में है.
दिल में तूफ़ानों कि टोली और नसों में इन्कलाब,
होश दुश्मन के उड़ा देंगे हमें रोको ना आज.
दूर रह पाये जो हमसे दम कहाँ मंज़िल में है,

वो जिस्म भी क्या जिस्म है जिसमें ना हो खून-ए-जुनून
तूफ़ानों से क्या लड़े जो कश्ती-ए-साहिल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है
देखना है ज़ोर कितना बाज़ुए कातिल में है

Advancing towards Stone Age

The notion that the world around us is continuously evolving is understood by one n all , yet we rarely grasp its full implications. We do not ordinarily think...for example... that malaria or even common cold virus to be evolving as it spreads year after year and that finally we’ll stumble across a virus thats incurable by our antibiotics. Nor do we think of evolution in plants and animals as occurring in a matter of days or weeks....though it does. And we do not ordinarily imagine the green world around us as a scene of constant, sophisticated chemical warfare, with plants producing pesticides in response to attack, and insects developing resistance. But I guess that happens too.
If we were to grasp the true nature of nature—if we could understand the real meaning of evolution—then we would envision a world in which every living plant, insect, and animal species is changing at every instant, in response to every other living plant, insect, and animal. Whole populations of organisms are rising and falling, shifting and changing. This restless and perpetual change,as unavoidable and unstoppable as the waves and tides, presents a world in which all human actions necessarily have uncertain effects. The total system we call the biosphere is so complicated that we cannot know in advance the consequences of anything that we do. That is why even our most enlightened past efforts have had undesirable outcomes....either because we did not understand enough, or because the
ever changing world responded to our actions in unexpected ways.
Unfortunately, our species has demonstrated a striking lack of caution in the past. n it is hard to imagine that we will behave any differently in the future. We think we know what we are doing. But isn’t it exactly what we thought in the past. We never seem to admit that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead ,each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds—and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own.

“They didn’t understand what they were doing”

I m afraid that will be on the tombstone of human race...
I hope not...

ASOKA

More than 2000 years ago a great Indian emperor shocked by the pain and suffering caused by war, changed his conception of law and government and emerged as the only ruler in the history of mankind to have realised the carnage and slaughter that is caused due to conquest by war and the contentment caused by conquest of morality or “dhrama vijaya” and to have strictly followed its path during one’s rule.

Asoka was the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya , the founder of the Mauryan dynasty. The foundation of the dynasty coincides with the death of Alexander the great in 323 BC has often suggested that probably there was some sort of a war between Chandragupta and Alexander’s general Selucas Nikater .Then again not much of Chandragupta’s reign has survived and all there is are in the writings from accounts of Megasthanes, the Greek ambassador to the Mauryan court. Asoka, however, left himself a record which he hoped would endure forever. They are merely records of moral law and not monuments to commemorate his conquests. He uses them to enforce laws, to find expression for his views , as guidelines for his future generations a lot like the modern day internet. Today probably the best and most detailed source to know about asoka are these edicts and hence our discussion centres around them. They tell us a tale of how a young tyrant prince, guilty of unspeakable atrocities became one of the greatest emperors of united India, of how he ceased to be known as Asoka “the wicked” and was called "Devanampiya piyadasi"( devanampriya-priyadarshi)or "the beloved of the Gods and the one who seeks the god of all"

These inscriptions are in Prakrit, the commonly spoken language and not in Sanskrit, the literary language.
The simple style and the crude language strongly suggests that these inscriptions are actual the words of the emperor. In a sense, from the edicts the character of the man emerges clearly and sharply, wisdom combined with practical shrewdness, tolerance unique in his time and rare in one holding such power combined with the desire to improve the ethical outlook of the common man to turn away and for setting up a sense of kinship among all.

INTERNATIONAL LINKS:
[Kalinga Rock edict XIII]
“I consider dharmavijaya the most important conquest. I have achieved the same repeatedly both here and among the people living beyond our borders. Even in the far lands of Yona ( modern Greece) where the king antiyoka rules [Antichos II] and in the dominion of the four kings named Turamaya, Antikini,Maka and Alikasudara, and to the south among the Cholas and Pandyas in the southern tip of the Indian peninula everywhere heed the instructions of dharma.”

The above passage is of extreme importance not only for the dating of events but also to judge the extent of communications of those times. It has been found that all the above mentioned kings were indeed belonged to the same period in different parts of the world.
The real names of the five kings mentioned above are.
Antiyoka [ Antichos II Theos of Syria (261-246 BC)]
Turamaya [Ptolemy II Philadelphos of Egypt (285 to 247 BC)]
Antikini [Antigonos Gonatas of Macedonia 278 to 239 BC]
Maka [Magas of Cyrene 300 to 258 BC]
Alikasudara[ Alexander of Epirus 272-258 BC]

Its really remarkable to note that the words used in the passages below are the actual words spoken by the emperor.
Here's another one.
ASOKA'S PROGRAMS & ADMINISTRATIONS:
[ROCK EDICT VI]
King Priyadarshi says,
In the past, state business was not transacted or reports made at all hours or the day. I have therefore made arrangements that officials may have access to me and may report on the affairs of my people at all times and in all places- when i am eating, when i am in the harem or my inner appartments, when i am attending to the cattle,when i am walking or engaged in religeous exercises. I now attend to the affairs of the people at all place. And when a donation or a proclamation that i have ordered verbally, or an urgent matter which I have delegated to my high officials, causes a debate or dispute in the council, this must be reported to me immediately, at all hours and in all places. These are my orders.
I consider the promotion of the people's welfare my highest duty and its exercise is grounded in work and constant application. No task is more important to me than promoting the well being of the people."

MEDICAL AID AND WELFARE
[ROCK EDICT II]
Everywhere in the dominions of king priyadarsi, as well as in the border territories of the Cholas, the pandyas, the satiyaputra and the keralaputra provisions have been made for two kinds od medical treatment, treatment for men and for animals.
Medicinal herbs, suitable for men and animals, have been imported and planted wherever they were not previously available.Also there, where roots and fruits were lacking, they have been imported and planted.
[ROCK EDICT VII]
I have ordered banyan trees to be planted along the roads to give shade to men and animals. I have ordered mango groves to be planted. Wells to be dug every half kos and rest houses to be built. I have ordered several watering stations built for the convenience for men and animals.

TOLERANCE:
[KALINGA EDICT II]
Unconquered people along the borders of my dominions may wonder what my disposition is towards them. My only wish with respect to them is that they should not fear me, but trust me; that they should expect only happiness from me, not misery;that they should understand further that I will forgive them for offences which can be forgiven.
[ROCK EDICT XII]
King Priyadarshi honours men of all faiths ,members of religeous orders, with gifts or marks of high esteem. One must always guard one's speech to avoid extolling one's own faith and disparaging the faith of others improperly.The faith of others all deserve to be honoured for one reason or another. By honouring them, one exalts one's own faith and at the same time performs a service tothe faith of others.

As the Legend goes....( Conversion of Asoka )

Legend has it that there was another factor that led Ashoka to Buddhism. A Mauryan princess who had been married to one of Ashoka's brothers (who Ashoka executed) fled her palace with a maid, fearing for her unborn child. After much travel, the pregnant princess collapsed under a tree in the forest, and the maid ran to a nearby ashram to fetch a priest or physician to help. Meanwhile, under the tree, the princess gave birth to a son. The young prince was brought up by the Brahmins of the ashram and educated by them. Later, when he was around thirteen years old, he caught the eye of Ashoka, who was surprised to see such a young boy dressed as a sage. When the boy calmly revealed who he was, it seemed that Ashoka was moved by guilt and compassion, and moved the boy and his mother into the palace.

Meanwhile Maharani Devi, who was a Buddhist, had brought up her children in that faith, and apparently left Ashoka after she saw the horrors of Kalinga. Ashoka was grieved by this, and was counselled by his nephew (who had been raised in the ashram and was more priest than prince) to embrace his dharma and draw away from war. Prince Mahindra and Princess Sanghamitra, the children of Maharani Devi, abhorred violence and bloodshed, but knew that as royals war would be a part of their lives. They therefore asked Ashoka for permission to join the Buddhist Sangha, which Ashoka reluctantly granted. The two siblings established Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

From that point Ashoka, who had been described as "the cruel Ashoka" (Chandashoka), started to be described as "the pious Ashoka" (Dharmashoka). He propagated the Vibhajjavada school of Buddhism and preached it within his domain and worldwide from about 250 BC. Emperor Ashoka undoubtedly has to be credited with the first serious attempt to develop a Buddhist policy.