Random Ramblings: Practical Implementation of Sharpening the Saw

Random Ramblings: Practical Implementation of Sharpening the Saw: One of the books that really influences my thinking is Stephen Covey's " The seven habits of highly effective people ". In th...

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The beauty of guilt

Only people with conscience can feel guilt. (Note that conscience and consciousness both share the same root.) We have all done things in our past that we are not proud of. There are things that we did behind closed doors, when we thought no one else was watching. There are thoughts we thought that we wouldn't disclose even to our closest friends. There are things that we did to people who had nowhere else to go, because they were too young, or were too innocent, or were totally dependent on us. I am talking about things we wouldn't write in our autobiographies or memoirs. We could choose to hide such past mistakes under the carpet. Or worse, we could justify to ourselves that what we did was not all that bad, and tell ourselves that there are others who have done much worse. But let's not justify our past mistakes like that and cheat ourselves - that could lead us to disaster. Let's go one step further and see how to live a life of character . T...
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A perspective on our understanding of God

A lot of us have heard this statement: There is only one God . Many of us probably believe that statement too. That statement has five words. I believe I understand the meanings of all the words in that sentence, except the last one - God . Do I really know what God means? Do I understand God ? Can God be understood? What tools do I have to understand? I have only my brain. Is my brain capable of understanding God ? But let's set aside these more fundamental questions for a moment, and address the statement. We all have to ask ourselves if that statement is in our experience. Intellectually, I believe I "kinda" understand what (or who) God is. (Note that when I say "kinda", it means incomplete knowledge.) But what about my experience? Have I seen this one God ? More fundamentally, can God be seen? Seeing is generally understood as seeing through eyes, but let's take it one step further. When we say "I see", we usually mean "I understa...
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Are you qualified to use certain words?

In my mother tongue Tamil, lot of boys and men use the word "machi" or "machaan" to address another guy in a friendly manner. The word "machaan" or "machi" means wife's brother. In Hindi too, there are slang words, "saalaa" or "saaley", which mean the same. I just want to present some scenarios where the usage of these slang words might be acceptable. Let's say an unmarried guy A calls another guy B "machi" (or its equivalent). This might be fine if any of the following are true: A is already married to B 's sister B doesn't have a sister for A to marry ( A can remain a bachelor then.) A intends to marry B 's sister and both B and one of B 's sisters are fine with that This might not be fine if A intends to marry B 's sister, but B or B 's sister don't like that idea. Then A , B and probably one of B 's sisters have a problem to sort out. But if a marrie...
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