Great post! And what a ghastly idea that teacher perpetuated! I wonder sometimes whether schools should be made accountable for the religious/spirtiual/philosophical impressions that their students might carry away. Teacherse are human after all and prone to their own biases, insecurities and fears. It isn't fair though to force that on the students they teach.

Incidently there is a seed of this thought in the Hindu concept of Shiva, the destroyer. In another belief system, the tarot also holds this ideology of death and destruction as a necessary part of the ongoing cycle of things. Somehow most of these get mangled and contorted in their interpretations and are furthur fueled by fear.

Thanks Idea Smith. As unfair as teachers can be, I guess when I look back I just feel that overcoming this fear was a big karmic challenge for me and so the stage was set when I was very young.

Of course everyone needs to take responsibility and I quite like your idea of making schools accountable, but start holding teachers responsible and you'll soon see everyone shirking off responsibility for their inputs (parents etc). People just need an excuse to blame everything on someone, anyone.

Hi anusheh,
An extremely poignant and philosophical article which drives us to question the basic core of our existence,indeed it is the fear of death that builds the wedge between heroes and commoners,the people like imran khan who made the cancer hospital out of sheer passion,and us who can just donate/cannot donate to the cause.Indeed it is the very few who trudge the way between fear and immortality,right from rabindranath tagore who wrote jodi tor dak sune keu na aase tobe ekla cholo re,(If nobody comes hearing yur call you should go alone)to Mirza Ghalib everybody has emphasised,the act of fearlessness,the stuff of spiritualism,the state of heightened awareness,or the stuff of which revolutions are nade.

Hi Sayan

Thanks. Well I dont know I think more than what you do it's first and foremost about who you are, then whatever flows out of you is pure and forceful and what Buddhism calls 'right action'-not necessarily implying a certain kind of action (heroic, generous, etc.) but an awareness in ones action and when the awareness exists then courage, fearlessness and heroism are just natural outcomes.

So what did you think of Yogini?

Hi Anusheh,
I have not read much of yogini for many days as both my phd pressure as well as the fact that recently i had celebrated my birthday,both culminated to distract me from my rendezvous with serious philosophy.See i indeed agree to the fact that heroes do what they do without any further effort,like they dont try to be courageous or heroic they do what seems natural to do in those difficult circumstances,in this context i remember imran saying that it never crossed his mind that the hospital cannot be built,he knew somehow that funds will come and his dream will be established,such faith indeed is the dream of what heroics are made off.Anyway why dont you write something about yur country,you views regarding the state of women in yur country?,the level of development in presidential regime?,any improvement that you can see since the time you have left your country,and finally the attitude regarding your neighboring country.Actually i am quite interested to know more about your country.I can easily get this material by googling but the perspective becomes all the more true and exact when viewed from the eyes of a native of a country.Till then bye take care.

Hi Sayan

A belated happy birthday to you. Hope the year is full of light, love and peace for you. So you're a leo. Lots of fire, determination and single mindedness.

As far as politics go Sayan count me out. I really cant get into that at all at the level of discussion or debate. As for the current state of affairs I dont really know if I'm the right person to comment on anything as I have been away now for a while and generally am quite out of touch. But If I do think of an interesting piece to do on Pakistan I shall definitely post one:-)

Is your dissertation due soon? Good luck with it.

Hi anusheh,
I can understand that you are not interested in politics but i know for sure you are socially conscientious,and thus i want to know what are the exact differences that you had percieved among the two countries,both in social and economic front.I am a leo-virgo cusp and yes quite emotional and stubborn.Socially conscientious issues,makes me very passionate.What about yur zodiac sign?My guess a scorp.

Dear Anusheh,

When I was in my teens, I remember, I used to often imagine what would my life be without my parents. When the thought of their death would come to me immediately I would have this feeling of emptiness and hollowness closing in tightly in my heart. As if everything would come to an end. But along with this thought I used to have this dream where I would see myself dead and then find my soul seeing all the people around my body. It would feel sad for leaving them behind. This dream would continue along with the thought of my parents death.

But then the dream started changing. The beginning was the same along with the initial feeling of sadness. But then another feeling started coming in in the dream. My soul which was seeing all this suddenly started telling itself that why do you have to feel sad. You are no more in that body and everything that was attached with that body is no more so why the saddness? Why do you think you will feel lonely? What was there you have left it with the body.

When I started seeing this dream, the feeling of sadness started disappearing, the thought about my parents death and the lonliness started going away. It made me realize that the fear and sadness was because I was limiting life. I decided from then onwards to make the most of the time that I had to spend with my parents and share their love.

This should have probably been on Aachi's last post. But when you wrote about death I remembered this dream.