who is better?

It has been said that “Manushya Januma” is the purest or ultimate form of life you can get through which (from your righteous living) you can attain “Moksha”. We have been brought up by giving various illustrations about how we can get an “animal” form in our next birth if we did something wrong.
- You would be born as a bed-bug in your next birth if you disturb someone’s sleep.
- Somebody had spoiled some family, and hence they are born as a cat in this birth
- If I keep some debt with you (not only monetary) I will be born as a dog in your house next time and I will repay your debt.

And so on... Whether these are superstitions are not is a separate debate. My point is not that. Are animals really less fortunate than humans? For a moment lets forget those animals which are captured by man and ill-treated; like the ones in circus and all. If we consider only that natural form of animals and re-ask the question… are we more fortunate than them?
Somehow I think differently. I feel they are more fortunate than us. They are satiated just by eating something and sleeping somewhere. But we? We need good food, we need a soft bed to sleep, we need people whom we love around us, we need money, we want this, we want that… not only greedy people; even the so called normal people need a lot more things than animals. If they don’t have them they die in misery. Whereas an animal unless dying of some disease (which we also do sometimes) never dies in misery. So how is an animal life less fortunate than a human life?

Animals don't nee to "think", which by itself is a major blessing if you ask me. They don't have to do future retirement plans, they don't even have to think about tomorrow. If they survive they do.. else they just go. But can we live like that? Never.

Hence I strongly believe that we humans are the most unfortunate because we can see/feel/think everything.

I had a neighbor in mysore, who used to feed their dog with dairy milk chocolates and kaju burfis. given a chance I would swap with snowy anytime!

Celebrating Life and Death

Before last week a family of 7 died in a road accident. They were distant relatives of P. We went to express our condolences to them at night. The scene was horrifying to say the least.

I had not seen a dead body in my life until the day of my Pati’s sad demise. The scene is still etched in my memory. The way they bought the “body” into the house, and when I touched my Pati, she was all hard and life less… For the first time in my life I got scared of touching her! That was 10 years ago.

Yesterday’s memory will also remain forever. People who die in accidents die horribly. Bodies crushed… parts not recognizable…. I had only heard of these things before. Saw it yesterday. Having a soft heart doesn’t help the situation either! The surviving members of the family were inconsolable! Loosing just one member at a time itself is horrible… just imagine loosing 7 at a time. I don’t know them... so I was just a mute spectator, but though I was not emotionally attached to them at all... I could not control my tears. I don’t even know the names of who have died, but I cried with their family. I just could not help it.

Came home quite late and as expected had to take head bath and wash all the clothes which we were wearing. Finally settled down to sleep… since we had just taken bath at that time... sleep was still far away. So P and I started discussing about life in general.

Isn’t it quite surprising that we never realize that we can get a “call” anytime? But still we fight to be here. We fight for petty things.

• Daughter In-Law fights with Mother In-Law to have more control of her husband (what will she do with it? When he or for that matter she is “gone”?)
• Siblings fight for money from their parents. Will they take it when they go?
• We work day in and out to save money and build a new house and make it as comfortable as possible with all the amenities. Just to be gone without anything one day?
• People murder other people if they face failures in love or business. Will they take their partners be it business or personal along with them when they go?
• When people die “suddenly” they would not have even said a proper “bye” to their near and dear ones. But when they are alive they don’t have time to say “Hi” to the same near and dear ones. How ironical!

Having thought about all this we realized we are not celebrating the God given “life” to the full extent. We should thank God for every single day he gives us and live it the fullest.

LIVE LIFE LOVE LIFE… who knows when we have to let go?