Memories.... and 

The notations of fur elise and joy to the world you taught me with those tiny fingers still promenade my mind whenever I try to make a few sounds on the organ, but memories faded till I received your call the other day. to remember might not be a great deal but to cherish those memories and the blast them out with a single call is an eye-opener that how far all have travelled and how far all are blessed with the small little experiences that shape the journey forth.

thanks a lot for that call Julie, that made me realize we share our existence also through the memories cherished through others- which in turn celebrated through feasts and birthdays etc.

God Bless.

Cherishing our days with Binu Aji and Alex

Cherishing our Co-pilgrims, as the move on…

It would be hard not to remember the wonderful student days of Deacons Binu, Aji (John Cyril) and Alexander, as they move on to a new phase of their life, with a sweet smile and nostalgic memories that promenade the corridors, chapels, gardens etc.  As the saying goes life never comes back, those were the days which benefited many who came across the warmth and love, success and failures of these three companions of St. Francis. It would be an uphill task to pen the memories and our wishes to the three separately, so I would wish to make it together as they were and are in their journey.

To begin with their physical stature, they are in proportion when Alexander comes in between the two, the same goes with their age too –the tallest is the youngest. However, when it comes to the fervor in which things are executed I believe Alexander takes precedence with his dexterity in many fields, be it chapel where he could lead you into prayer with all his spiritual dilution; his keen aesthetical perception of the proportions; sense of holiness; and more over his commitment to the same. However, when it comes to the field of music, we have the two other companions helping him out with their skills of singing (Aji) and on the keys of piano (Binu). That’s the reason I can't dissect them in identifying before you their skills. The triune bond that they had from their student days complemented each other in their difficulties and put them at ease during their happy moments. The youngest of them all -tall, mighty and athletic Aji aka john Cyril, believes in procrastinating things which to the surprise of all bring out the much better of his talents. Creativity comes in spontaneity, this works well with Aji whose talent in music also makes the icing on the cake. Ask him for an idea, it comes at the drop of a hat. Ask him for a help, he bits more than he could chew. Ask him to accompany for a mile, you will feel satiated (fed up) by his company. Finally, don’t ask him to sing, ‘cause he does it always. To make the story short, it would be better to write on Binu, the eldest in age; and youngest in wisdom. He is so systematic, that it is difficult to decipher his ways. He is so genuine, that we find difficult to entrust him a work, since he becomes the work. He is so loving, that the bond among the three speaks volumes. He is so child-like, the young and the old love spending hours with him. He is so dedicated, often he forgets himself; A talented keyboardist, he brings harmony not only to the songs but also to the community where he belongs (not to mention anywhere he goes).

On this pages of Echo we, the Prem Jyoti Custody wishes our ‘to be priest’ or the ‘on-going’ deacons the very best in their ventures, as they move from one phase to the other in their life. It is difficult to picture them with these few words, but their days as students and anyone who came across them or encountered them would never ever forget their influence and charisma in fostering relations and spreading the fragrance of Francis to all. On a lighter note, I found many of our common friends on a frugal budget, I enquired is it because of the demonetization, No! Came the reply, ‘we are imitating the Capuchins –Binu and Co’. I was caught by surprise, not because of the influence of Binu and Co. but rather they didn’t identify me as a Capuchin!

I thought of reviving my blog with a song written by me....

I see deserts piling high on the rivers trails.

I see smoke stack the morn which were sweet and foggy.

The snow that pure has come to its close,

The heaps of waste  take up the track of woods.

Where are the birds that used to dot the sky?

Where are the fish that used to swim this stream?

Where are those butterflies that adorned the air?

Are these beauty confined to memories?

How can I breath my air; once were

Pure and pristine, soothing my soul.

How can I again trust my breath?

O Life what about you tomorrow?

O life potent in its kernel

O life never come, never let thy be

To permeate, this hazard tomorrow.

I wish there’s a clock which I could rewind.

Time to realize it’s all truly worth.

The sign is now, here in the air

Where are the birds that used to dot the sky?

Where are the fish that used to swim this stream?

Where are those butterflies that adorned the air?

Are these beauty confined to memories?

This was an article of mine published in Chestnut.... a magazine from Marygiri Philosophate

Universal Multiverse

The enrichment and ferment of thoughts is caused by revelations from the size and uniqueness in the world all around us and within us. All around us the physical sciences are endlessly extending its void with vast abysses of time and space, and discerns new relationships between the elements of the universe. Within us a whole world of affinities and interrelated affections is awakened by the stimulus of these revelations and thus take its shape and consistency. The premonitions of these unknown forces and their applications in new fields,are the same and emerging simultaneously on all sides.

Even the grain of sand we have around us speaks this similar revelation awakening a realization of the wholeness brings out an inevitable profound religious reaction on the mass of mankind. This grain of sand had its evolution unshattered even after its existence for billions of years, and it clearly speaks in disguise the process of creation or rather the process of evolution as a journey to the different extremities within the particle. This particle becomes a  humanity when it can realize its own evolution, because humanity is the culmination of nature’s own movement through time.An inquiry into the infinite is rather absurd because this leap is hindered by a barrier of which the humanity is ignorant and aware, this is the paradox of life , and could be called of a state within and without.To this state the words of St.Augustine easily goes,”I have long yearned to meditate on your law and to confess my knowledge and ignorance of it to you, the daybreak of your enlightenment and the remnants of my darkness, until weakness is swallowed up in strength.”

This enigma entangled within the humanity is revealed only when a transition through reality takes place, here the barrier is broken down to free oneself from the constraints of time. Such a barrier in the journey sprouts a series of quests in and around the man. These quests are based  on two activities- what he does and what he undergoes, any who uses these- to seek will find,to knock, he will get it opened and to ask will be answered. This notion of expectancy of the unknown reality makes the man raise up to a substratum of an intellectual assent, which perfects the mind and chisels it to possess the truth, where reason is deprived of a grasp.This view on the evolution of humanity is substantiated by religion and science which are two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same act of complete knowledge.

The above mentioned intellectual assent cannot be attained without the world around us, since the negation of the world  in and around  make this realization unreal and illusory.Thus when religion and science comes hand to hand as a fellow traveler the search for eternity is fructified. When search for infinity is theological it brings out a situation where the search can be a perfect combination of power and love, supernatural and pure in form.It results in an unknown conviction where humanity gets confined within.But to this dimension of life when a upliftment to a higher consciousness is attributed with a pace of movement within the boundaries of the material world, there will be a vital change in the outlook on faith where religion is fostered by science.

Thus the humanity could bring out a path to wholeness by the conviction of an anticipated reality where fulfillment of himself or the perfection in evolution could be obtained. This anticipation precisely require a transition to view the humanness in others as it really is.St.Paul says,”Whatever you do, do it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Where the interpretation come for an intimate union with Lord Jesus Christ. Christ being the supreme turned to man, had in him the essence of man, which ought to be realized. And with this conviction if the concepts are redefined, you see this essence in others the same as which you possess and then when you act out, the very act becomes the “divinity”, an  act beyond explanation. This brings out the next phase, the phase of detachment, Where you never get influenced by any, created or eternal, but perfecting the “divinity” within you by emptying. This brings out the perfection in evolution within the barrier of time, which seem supernatural but never unattainable, since this is the perfection humanity acquires by the change a midst the matter within him.

In order to foster the perfection in evolution let us observe the birth and growth of this “divinity”, and as a leaven let us begin it by ourselves.

this was one of my poems..... about the search within me

Pace Of My Search

I found him in the way of search
caught in a web of streams
stagnant to putrefy, the reason of quiescence
fading the vision of unfading paths
deviving the twists of entangling further

Me and and my quest were quested with tangles
that nearly bended a fleeting guidance.
The dagger of fate uncaught by shaft
lanced to conceal the way of my search.

A fool of thousand intellects consumes
but wanders to leave off the shore
shivered the pace of my journey
to fight the useless fight never discovered.

But the slow pace cleared the smog
brought to change, change could bring.
Stagnant streams sprouting than hallowing
brought me to the path off the tangles.

The steps to be, give the move
to pace the change within the change
Never stumbling any, but little to ignore
b'coz much to cover in the endless path
a path beyond the horizon of reach.

If Siddhārtha Gautama or simply the Buddha (563 BCE to 483 BCE) and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 to 25 August 1900) had been introduced. By Bertrand Arthur William Russell, (18 May 1872 to 2 February 1970):

"The question is: If Buddha and Nietzsche were confronted, could either produce any argument that ought to appeal to the impartial listener? I am not thinking of political arguments. We can imagine them appearing before the Almighty, as in the first chapter of the Book of Job, and offering advice as to the sort of world He should create. What could either say?

Buddha would open the argument by speaking of the lepers, outcast and miserable; the poor, toiling with aching limbs and barely kept alive by scanty nourishment; the wounded in battle, dying in slow agony; the orphans, ill-treated by cruel guardians; and even the most successful haunted by the thought of failure and death. From all this load of sorrow, he would say, a way of salvation must be found, and salvation can only come through love.

Nietzsche, whom only Omnipotence could restrain from interrupting, would burst out when his turn came: "Good heavens, man, you must learn to be of tougher fibre. Why go about snivelling because trivial people suffer? Or, for that matter, because great men suffer? Trivial people suffer trivially, great men suffer greatly, and great sufferings are not to be regretted, because they are noble. Your ideal is a purely negative one, absence of suffering, which can be completely secured by non- existence. I, on the other hand, have positive ideals: I admire Alcibiades, and the Emperor Frederick II, and Napoleon. For the sake of such men, any misery is worth while. I appeal to You, Lord, as the greatest of creative artists, do not let Your artistic impulses be curbed by the degenerate fear-ridden maunderings of this wretched psychopath."

Buddha, who in the courts of Heaven has learnt all history since his death, and has mastered science with delight in the knowledge and sorrow at the use to which men have put it, replies with calm urbanity: "You are mistaken, Professor Nietzsche, in thinking my ideal a purely negative one. True, it includes a negative element, the absence of suffering; but it has in addition quite as much that is positive as is to be found in your doctrine. Though I have no special admiration for Alcibiades and Napoleon, I, too, have my heroes: my successor Jesus, because he told men to love their enemies; the men who discovered how to master the forces of nature and secure food with less labour; the medical men who have shown how to diminish disease; the poets and artists and musicians who have caught glimpses of the Divine beatitude. Love and knowledge and delight in beauty are not negations; they are enough to fill the lives of the greatest men that have ever lived."

"All the same," Nietzsche replies, "your world would be insipid. You should study Heraclitus, whose works survive complete in the celestial library. Your love is compassion, which is elicited by pain; your truth, if you are honest, is unpleasant, and only to be known through suffering; and as to beauty, what is more beautiful than the tiger, who owes his splendour to his fierceness? No, if the Lord should decide for your world, I fear we should all die of boredom."
"You might," Buddha replies, "because you love pain, and your love of life is a sham. But those who really love life would be happy as no one can be happy in the world as it is."

-Bertrand Russell "A History of Western Philosophy" (1945) Book Three, Part II, Chapter XXV, Nietzsche, p. 771-772
Buddha would open the argument by speaking of the lepers, outcast and miserable; the poor, toiling with aching limbs and barely kept alive by scanty nourishment; the wounded in battle, dying in slow agony; the orphans, ill-treated by cruel guardians; and even the most successful haunted by the thought of failure and death. From all this load of sorrow, he would say, a way of salvation must be found, and salvation can only come through love.
Nietzsche, whom only Omnipotence could restrain from interrupting, would burst out when his turn came: "Good heavens, man, you must learn to be of tougher fibre. Why go about snivelling because trivial people suffer? Or, for that matter, because great men suffer? Trivial people suffer trivially, great men suffer greatly, and great sufferings are not to be regretted, because they are noble. Your ideal is a purely negative one, absence of suffering, which can be completely secured by non- existence. I, on the other hand, have positive ideals: I admire Alcibiades, and the Emperor Frederick II, and Napoleon. For the sake of such men, any misery is worth while. I appeal to You, Lord, as the greatest of creative artists, do not let Your artistic impulses be curbed by the degenerate fear-ridden maunderings of this wretched psychopath."
Buddha, who in the courts of Heaven has learnt all history since his death, and has mastered science with delight in the knowledge and sorrow at the use to which men have put it, replies with calm urbanity: "You are mistaken, Professor Nietzsche, in thinking my ideal a purely negative one. True, it includes a negative element, the absence of suffering; but it has in addition quite as much that is positive as is to be found in your doctrine. Though I have no special admiration for Alcibiades and Napoleon, I, too, have my heroes: my successor Jesus, because he told men to love their enemies; the men who discovered how to master the forces of nature and secure food with less labour; the medical men who have shown how to diminish disease; the poets and artists and musicians who have caught glimpses of the Divine beatitude. Love and knowledge and delight in beauty are not negations; they are enough to fill the lives of the greatest men that have ever lived."
"All the same," Nietzsche replies, "your world would be insipid. You should study Heraclitus, whose works survive complete in the celestial library. Your love is compassion, which is elicited by pain; your truth, if you are honest, is unpleasant, and only to be known through suffering; and as to beauty, what is more beautiful than the tiger, who owes his splendour to his fierceness? No, if the Lord should decide for your world, I fear we should all die of boredom.""You might," Buddha replies, "because you love pain, and your love of life is a sham. But those who really love life would be happy as no one can be happy in the world as it is."

-Bertrand Russell "A History of Western Philosophy" (1945) Book Three, Part II, Chapter XXV, Nietzsche, p. 771-772

A peasant is convicted in China. He gets the death penalty. The judge allows him to say a last sentence in order to determine the way the penalty will be carried out. If the peasant lies, he will be hanged, if he speaks the truth he will be beheaded. The peasant speaks a last sentence and to everybody surprise some minutes later he is set free because the judge cannot determine his penalty.What did the peasant said?