Traffic Rules

They are not just for you to obey. It’s a well-disguised psychological warfare…

Note: This post is mainly for those who are yet to get their license, those who have been told that they are driving in a rash and dangerous manner, and for those who like a good reading.

Beyond Rules – The Bigger Picture.

First, a brief groundwork of basics. In most developed countries, there is a concept of parking ticket, where if one breaks a traffic rule, he will be photographed and the same will be sent home. Then you have to go to a nearby police station and pay the fine and may also get a warning against the license. But, the case of developing countries is very different. Here, there is no concept o photography and ticketing. If the policeman at the traffic signal, gets very lucky, and finds a guy crossing the light, and if he gets his weight shifted to the spot in time, he may earn some money for the day.

Having covered the basics let me come to the point. Let me consider an example, when a light turns red, it is not just an order for you to stop, it is a very serious psychological betting invitation. He bets on the fact that the light will not make you stop the vehicle. And by crossing the red signal, we may have attained satisfaction of youth and negligence, but unfortunately you lost the bet. Let me give you one simpler example. The Stop line is not just for you to stop, but to win his bet that a simple white line across the road will not stop you from deciding what you want to do.

There is an old saying, “You may think you have won the battle, but you have lost the war.” This quote applies to the present situation.

What you should do:

Take the following oath:

1. I will not allow someone I do not even know, to win a bet he has placed on me.
2. I will stop my vehicle before the “Stop” line. This is not to show that I obey traffic rules, but to wipe the smirk off that traffic policeman’s face.
3. I will follow the traffic signals or the signals given by the policeman (as the case depends), to the letter. This is to not give him an opportunity to win a bet that he did not deserve.
4. I will only give my oath only under two conditions:

a. When I am helping somebody suffering from a severe illness and deserving urgent medical attention

b. When there is an ambulance behind me and desperately trying for a way out. Whatever any government, institution or law says, a person’s life always has the highest priority.

Take the above oath and let us win not only petty battles, but also huge wars.

Behaviour - Part 1

A person’s character is always judged by his behaviour. This is a very old saying and very true. Man is a social animal and craves for grouping and recognition. To quench this thirst, society came into existence.

Naturally, when something is created, there has to be rules. Society is no exception.

I am going to explain for different categories....Today it is....

Parents

Now let me ask you to do a simple exercise. Use your senses. Let me explain:

1. Close your eyes. Allow your olfactory senses to work. Smell everything around you.
2. Hear everything around you. Even the tiniest sounds and concentrate on a few.
3. Open your eyes and see everything around you.

You will feel something after this exercise – you will feel ALIVE. This was possible because of your parents. They were responsible for creating you. And get this straight and very clear right now. They gave you a huge loan at your birth, which you cannot satisfy in this birth, and not by money alone.

So what do they expect in return? They expect to be loved and respected. I am going to explain the parent-child relationship from two views – Emotional and Monetary

The best way to respect your parents is by understanding them. Some children are successful in such an attempt. But majority do not attempt at all. The steps for establishing a perfect parent-child relationship involves the following stages:

1. Attempting to understand your parents
2. Understanding them
3. Respecting their intentions

Attempt

Emotional View

The most important part in this attempt is to question. When a parent scolds a child, first thing the child must do is to move away from the place of incidence as quickly as possible, say, to another room. The next step is to question. Why did they scold me? Superficial and emotionally stupid reasons such as “They don’t like me at all” should be immediately discarded. The question should be asked by your brain after thoroughly understanding that your parent loves you. Then the reason will be clear. They scolded you because you did not get good marks. Why did you not get good marks? Is it because of you or because of them? Again stupid emotional responses should be brushed aside. On doing so, you will find that you are standing on the wrong side of the fault line.

They created you, and they want to make you a good citizen, a good human being. But the fault lies in the fact that you do not return any favour at all. “Why should I live for them?” is the oft repeated question in the student’s mind.

Remember that they are giving very generous loans. First, they give you life, then facilitate your survival, and finally help you in every step and through every obstacle. So, the first and foremost duty of every human being is to respect his parents.

How can we attempt? By empathy. Putting ourselves in their place is the simplest and the most effective of all the methods in trying to understand one’s parents. When your father shouts at you for smoking, for one second and before you shout back, just mentally switch places and visualize yourself in a similar situation with your son.

This small delay will alleviate all friction in parent-child relationship. In such situations, responding immediately is the worst part.

Monetary View

“First Rule of Business, Protect your Investment” – Etiquette of the Banker 1775

They have invested their energy and resources in creating you. By thus creating, they have left you on a credit card. As you grow older, every human may try and some may even succeed in repaying the interest. But the principal will always remain pending.

The first thumb rule in every person’s life should be this – “I should not remain in the debt of others”.

Hence your entire life must be spent on satisfying this thumb rule. Thus, when you die, you will be at the debt of only your parents.

Naturally, the next question will be “If I can never repay this debt, why should I take the effort to repay it?” Again, it comes back to the concept of investment. By investing in a commodity, every investor expects it to yield something in return. And in neglecting your duty of payment, you forget to pay back even the accumulated interest, which at least is within your reach.

The next question will be “If it comes down to money, why cannot I pay a lump sum in the end?” Here comes the concept of life. We arise from nothing and will disappear into nothingness. So how can man take money with him when he dies? So, the payment should not be absolutely monetary, it should be in such a form that your investors feel it and utilize the same. It does not essentially mean luxury. It means comfort and showing them that you care for them. By doing so alone, you may succeed in repaying the interest.

“Why cannot I disobey them in my childhood and then when I become mature and older, repay them back in large amounts?” First point is that maturity and age are completely independent of each other. Secondly, the interest accumulates in a very alarming compound interest manner. The regular payer alone succeeds in repaying back the interest.

Understanding

Once you get the attempt path very clear in your mind, the next step is to actually understand your parent’s intentions. This is where the plot thickens. About 95% of all parent-child relationships in this world are good ones – meaning, both the parents have good characters in them. Among the rest, it’s the parental relationships that will be disturbing. The character of your parents should not be certified by your perspective alone.

In the majority of the cases, the parents will want to protect their investment. Now, I speak for this majority and I can confidently say that whatever they do is with your future in mind and with purity of intent.

Successful understanding involves repeatedly making attempts to understand their actions.

Respect

It is common knowledge that when you start to respect a person’s intention, you begin to respect the person. And this is what will happen if you successfully cross Stage 2.

What you should do:

As a child:

1. Your parents want you to be the best.
2. Your parents love you and your sibling(s) the most.
3. Whatever they do, is for you alone.

As a college going student:

1. Be sincere in the first stage: Attempt.
2. Your perspective is not always the right one. Remember this:

“The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you will ever look.”

3. Delay your response to your parent’s altercation at least by a moment.

As a working professional and a married man:

1. You have become independent. But you still have a loan to pay back.
2. You need not keep your parents in your house. But don’t insult them by sending them to an old age home.
3. With your parent’s consent (this clause is very important), relocate them to same city you are residing in.
4. If you are successful in point 3, visit them at least once a week and have a meal with them.
5. Even if they are someplace else, visit them at least once a year.
6. Call your parents regularly (at least twice a week).

In their old age:

1. Keep them with you in your house.
2. Most important, shower your love on them or at least try to show that you care. Therein lies your life’s foremost duty.

Religion

Disclaimer: This blog is not against any religion or religious group. This blog also does not target any person in particular. In this post, the word ‘man’ refers to mankind in general. This blog is just conveying my thoughts and opinions on religion.

Note: This blog is just food for your thought. Please scrutinize my arguments before accepting them as your own.

As you all know, the origin of Earth and that of the universe as a whole has always remained mysterious to man. In such a case, it is natural for man to assume a super power that would have created this universe and this ecologically diverse green planet: Earth.

Man has always sought recognition in this society. A society is nothing but a collection of species of the same type. By creating his own identity, man can create colonies and thus recognize himself / herself as part of that colony. Thus was born the concept of name, religion, subgroups within a religion, work and so on. There are so many classification that man has forgotten his identity or rather his origin and that he is just a species who is fortunate enough to be part of this marvelous planet.

We have to remember that we pride ourselves in what we possess, the sixth sense. It is the rational power to decide which is right and which is not. This is what differentiates man from other species. Now, the question I am asking you today is this - Are we using this sixth sense as it was expected to be used by our ancestors and predecessors - the wise men of the old age.

As you very well know, primitive men - I am not talking about Adam and Eve but say, hundreds of years later, when men had nothing to do but to think about their purpose on this land - were the wise men I am referring to.

In my opinion, there existed no religion during that time. Then, of course, man in his craze for recognition, created religions based on differences in opinion about this super power. For example, a Christian is a person who believes that Jesus Christ is that super power. And so on. I have just stated only one example. There are million other examples in this world.

What is most important is that religions are like names given to a person. It just distinguishes a person from a group. For example, consider three persons, Ashwin, Abdul and Albert. Now there is no point in fighting among themselves on which name is better over the others. Such fighting can be termed nonsense, as a name is just a form of identifying a person in this planet. Similarly, a religion is just a person’s belief and hence much similar to one’s identity. Hence fighting between religions for superiority is also nonsense.

On the contrary, a person should learn about other religion’s beliefs and marvel at the diversity man has created through the ages. For example, if you meet a person who practices the religion that you don’t believe in, then it is similar to meeting a person whose name you don’t like. That does not make that person good or bad. A name is given by his parents after his birth and a person has no control over choosing his name. Hence a name cannot determine a person’s character. Similarly, religion also does not indicate a person‘s character.

Places of Worship

Now, every religion has its own practices, festivals and places of worship. The practices and festivals of a religion give it a unique identity.

A place of worship is very important for man. This applies even for the atheists. A place of worship is a place where people usually belonging to a particular religion or a common belief offer their prayers to God. A prayer can vary from a plea for removing obstacles to acknowledging the power of God. Hence, a place of worship is filled with positive energy from all the people who visit the place. And therefore, when a person goes inside such a place, he will feel the energy and absorb the same. This energy, I would like to give it the term Auric energy.

As the name suggests, the energy surrounding a person, or aura is called as the auric energy. It has been proved that it actually exists. It is called as Aura imaging and Analysis. It is this auric energy that the elders usually try to describe in very old places of worship. For example, a person may feel that energy in a thousand year old temple.

I am about to describe my theory about the birth of religion.

Earth is a very large place. A person’s auric energy cannot increase in open air environment. The wise people, hence wanted to assemble all the people in some particular place and wanted the people to think good thoughts inside that place. But what would make the people think of good thoughts. What do they recognize as power? The creator of course. So the wise men built places and dedicated it in the name of Gods, so that people when they step inside that place, they will think of good thoughts alone. Thus religion and places of worship were born.

Naturally these buildings should be designed in a particular fashion, in such a way that they conserve the auric energy. That is why there are domes in mosques, gopurams in temples and top of the churches are in conical shape. When a person steps inside a place of worship, he increases his auric energy.

What to Do:

• In every religion, every custom and practice was designed with some intention. We should follow the customs and try to find the intention when we can. On finding the intention, one must rationally scrutinize the argument before accepting it.
• No religion is good or bad. Remember that religion is just like a name of a person, a form of identification. Nothing More and Nothing Less.
• One must visit his / her place of worship at least once a week.
• One must be proud of his / her religion, but at the same time should not declare it as the best.
• One must deserve to see God in very popular places of worship. What I am trying to say is that the more you avoid special queues, the more deserved you will feel when you finally see God. It is a very simple concept. The more the people, the more the auric energy. The more time you spend inside such a place of worship, the more energy you will absorb. And naturally it is good for you.

In the end, it is all just a matter of perspective. To one’s perspective, what one believes in, will seem the best. But that does not mean everyone should share your perspective. One must respect other’s perspectives also, even if he does not have faith in the same. Still does this idea sound alien to you? Then practice empathy. Before you say something about another person’s perspective, just imagine yourself in his / her place and imagine what will be your reaction.

A person will not let his beliefs and thus his identity be challenged. So, one must be proud of his religion and also respect other religions.