What a kick? Why not to do this in India!!

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is a truly brave man. 

He has suspended yesterday the Nigerian football team, which failed to win a single match! 

Perhaps, because, football is a great uniting and bonding factor in this land of diversity which has more than 300 tribes and customs.

The president also wants an audit of the current World Cup organising committee. 

In past, Nigerian fans are known to have  become so angry at thier team's failure that they broke glasses of the  team bus and hand to be  prevented from attacking  the dressing rooms with the help of tear gas shells. 

Their team, the Super Eagles, has earned the new name, as a joke:  the Super Chickens. 

The ban is to "enable Nigeria to reorganise its football".The Nigerian Football Federation will  be dissolved  Nigeria were knocked out in the group stages without winning a game. 

  

To Mr president Goodluck Jonathan, we say : Jonathan, Goodluck!!

India’s record world Championships is nothing to crow about. in past there was Milkha Singh in the 1958 who won 400 m gold. An occasional Rathore, Saina or Bindra, that is all. Take any game, sports or athletic event and we are absent. Our contingents have more non-playing members from various govt. depttt.s than the players! 

Oh, we need not forget Kabaddi and Kho-Kho and are masters because hardly anybody else knows about it.

  

Remedy?

  

One  feels our nation deserves Goodluck actions - Nigerian style. Ban all the sports and sportspersons who have lost shamelessly at major events. 

Ban them for two years. Put them to focussed task of improving. Audit their accounts. Whip the corrupt and unworthy officials.

As for cricketers, additional put a ban on their advt. contracts , so that they can play properly. Or else, levy additional tax on advt income, so that it is not worth earning.  

In other words, do whatever is necessary , whether written in the book or not. 

Compare us with the neighbour!

  

China's participation in Olympics started  in1936 at Berlin Games and performance was pathetic. There were more than one reasons for intervening absence & she  entered Olympics after a break of 30 years at 1984 Los Angeles and - the world was shocked by the sterling performance of its players.  

Reasons?

In August 1995, a ‘Physical Culture Law’ was enacted in China , which created   a series of rules and regulations requiring citizens to enhance their health and physique through sports. 

With the emphasis on young people and children, this programme proposes that everyone engage in at least one sports activity daily, master at least two body-building methods and have a health examination every year. 

 It also requires that physical culture departments at all levels help individuals to create health-building activities that fit in with their work and school commitments. 

The National Physical Fitness Programme has set a number of targets to be reached in a timely manners, such as  making 37% of China’s total population (that’s 481 million citizens) take part in physical exercises regularly, and to have 350,000 popular sports instructors across the country. 

By the end of 2000, there were 30 national  sports associations and over 40,000 grassroots sports associations, plus  3,854 urban sports organisations,and also 2,000 community sports instruction stations with  100,000 part-time sports instructors. 

Since 

the 1990s, large numbers of sports centres have been constructed or reconstructed. In the period 2000- 2002 alone, 1,077 public health building projects were created. There are - unbelievable but true - more than 620,000 stadiums and gymnasiums in

China!

China's sports coaches are rated  on the success of their students. In 2009, for example, Ai Dongmei, a former national marathon champion, and two of her team-mates, were granted  damages from their former coach, who was regularly beating them and had taken away  all their earnings.

Long live such a dedication for sports and for the national pride. Long live the visionaries in Nigeria and China.

Waiting with crossed fingers to be commence soon and end without national disgrace!!

MERA  BHARAT ALREADY MAHAN !!!

Smart People, Stupid Governments !

“I am not as much a China fan as an India fan. I think India is eventually going to get its act together. China may still be better than India in ten years, but I think India is favourite over time, because they have natural resources, smart people, and better technology.  But who knows, Governments can always alter the course by doing stupid things”

John Mauldin

Bestselling Author,

Recognised Financial Expert and

Editor of the  weekly newsletter

THOUGHTS FROM THE FRONTLINE

Diwali - the reminder of victory of good over the evil within an individual.

Greetings and Best Wishes

for Diwali ( or Dīpāvali),

the Indian festival , scheduled on 17th Oct.2009

of lights, fire crackers, sweets and gaiety !!

Diwali or Dīpāvali is a significant festival and almost everywhere, people celebrate Diwali as the Festival of Lights. They light diyas—cotton string wicks inserted in small clay pots filled with oil—to signify victory of good over the evil within an individual.

Osho narrates a beautiful story from Upanishads

Osho narrated a beautiful story from Upanishad days about seeking supreme knowledge

(http://www.energyenhancement.org/vedanta/Osho-Vedanta-Seven-steps-to-Samadhi-Chapter-4-The-Supreme-Knowl edge.html)

It runs like this: The supreme knowledge cannot be taught. The disciple cannot know that there is something which cannot be taught. It happened in Upanishadic days that one young boy, Svetaketu, was sent by his father to a gurukul, to a family of an enlightened master, to learn. He learned everything that could be learned, he memorized all the Vedas and all the science available in those days. He became proficient in them, he became a great scholar; his fame started spreading all over the country. Then there was nothing else to be taught, so the master said, "You have known all that can be taught. Now you can go back."

Thinking that everything had happened and there was nothing else -- because whatsoever the master knew, he also knew, and the master had taught him everything -- Svetaketu went back. Of course with great pride and ego, he came back to his father.

When he was entering the village his father, Uddalak, looked out of the window at his son coming back from the university. He saw the way he was walking -- very proudly, the way he was holding his head -- in a very egoistic way, the way he was looking all around -- very self-conscious that he knew. The father became sad and depressed, because this is not the way of one who really knows, this is not the way of one who has come to know the supreme knowledge.

The son entered the house. He was thinking that his father would be very happy -- he had become one of the supreme most scholars of the country; he was known everywhere, respected everywhere -- but he saw that the father was sad, so he asked, "Why are you sad?"

The father said, "Only one question I have to ask you. Have you learned that by learning which there is no need to learn anything any more? Have you known that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have you been taught that which cannot be taught?"

The boy also became sad. He said, "No. Whatsoever I know has been taught to me, and I can teach it to anybody who is ready to learn."

The father said, "Then you go back and ask your master that you be taught that which cannot be taught."

The boy said, "But that is absurd. If it cannot be taught, how can the master teach me?"

The father said, "That is the art of the master: he can teach you that which cannot be taught. You go back."

He went back. Bowing down to his master's feet, he said, "My father has sent me for an absolutely absurd thing. Now I don't know where I am and what I am asking you. My father has told me to come back and return only when I have learned that which cannot be learned, when I have been taught that which cannot be taught. What is it? What is this? You never told me about it."

The master said, "Unless one inquires, it cannot be told; you never inquired about it. But now you are starting a totally different journey. And remember, it cannot be taught, so it is very delicate; only indirectly will I help you. Do one thing: take all the animals of my gurukul -- there were at least four hundred cows, bulls and other animals -- and go to the deepest forest possible where nobody ever comes and moves. Live with these animals in silence. Don't talk, because these animals cannot understand any language. So remain silent, and when just by reproduction these four hundred animals have become one thousand, then come back."

It was going to be a long time -- until four hundred animals had become one thousand. And he was to go without saying anything, without arguing, without asking, "What are you telling me to do? Where will it lead?" He was to just live with animals and trees and rocks; not talking, and forgetting the human world completely. Because your mind is a human creation, if you live with human beings the mind is continuously fed. They say something, you say something -- the mind goes on learning, it goes on revolving.

"So go," the master said, "to the hills, to the forest. Live alone. Don't talk. And there is no use in thinking, because these animals won't understand even your thinking. Drop all your scholarship here."

Svetaketu followed. He went to the forest and lived with the animals for many years. For a few days thoughts remained there in the mind -- the same thoughts repeating themselves again and again. Then it became boring. If new thoughts are not felt, then you will become aware that the mind is just repetitive, just a mechanical repetition; it goes on in a rut. And there was no way to get new knowledge. With new knowledge the mind is always happy, because there is something again to grind, something again to work out; the mechanism goes on moving.

Svetaketu became aware. There were four hundred animals, birds, other wild animals, trees, rocks, rivers and streams, but no man and no possibility of any human communication. There was no use in being very egoistic, because these animals didn't know what type of great scholar this Svetaketu was. They didn't consider him at all; they didn't look at him with respect, so by and by the pride disappeared, because it was futile and it even looked foolish to walk in a prideful way with the animals. Even Svetaketu started feeling, "If I remain egoistic these animals will laugh at me -- so what am I doing?" Sitting under the trees, sleeping near the streams, by and by his mind became silent.

The story is beautiful. The years passed and his mind became so silent that Svetaketu completely forgot when he had to return. He became so silent that even this idea was not there. The past dropped completely, and with the dropping of the past the future drops, because the future is nothing but a projection of the past -- just the past reaching into the future. So he forgot what the master had said, he forgot when he had to return. There was no when and where, he was just here and now. He lived in the moment just like the animals, he became a cow.

The story says that when the animals became one thousand, they started feeling uncomfortable. They were waiting for Svetaketu to take them back to the ashram and he had forgotten, so one day the cows decided to speak to Svetaketu and they said, "Now it is time enough, and we remember that the master had said that you must come back when the animals became one thousand, and you have completely forgotten. Now is the time and we must go back. We have become one thousand."

So Svetaketu went back with the animals. The master looked from the door of his hut at Svetaketu coming with one thousand animals, and he said to his other disciples, "Look, one thousand and one animals are coming." Svetaketu had become such a silent being -- no ego, no self-consciousness, just moving with the animals as one of them.

The master came to receive him; the master was dancing, ecstatic. He embraced Svetaketu and he said, "Now there is nothing to say to you -- you have already known. Why have you come? There is no need to come now, there is nothing to be taught. You have already known."

Svetaketu said, "Just to pay my respects, just to touch your feet, just to be grateful. It has happened, and you have taught me that which cannot be taught."

This is what a master is to do: create a situation in which the thing happens. So only indirect effort can be made, indirect help, indirect guidance. And wherever direct guidance is given, wherever your mind is taught, it is not religion. It may be theology but not religion; it may be philosophy but not religion

Acknowledgement: Some interesting pictures of Osho in his younger days !