The Greatest Asset

Lord William Wintock, British governor-general in India from 1828 to 1835, has the dubious distinction of being remembered as the man who ordered the destruction of the Taj Mahal in Agra – an order which, happily, he was never able to have carried out. This was revealed at the turn of the century by the then viceroy, Lord Curzon. The East India Company had been going through hard times, Lord Curzon explained, and it was suggested to Lord Wintock that a sale of the Taj would fetch Rs. 100,000 – enough to extricate the company from its financial crisis. News of the Company’s intentions circulated, and there was stiff opposition to such a move. This infuriated Lord Wintock, who now went one step further and gave orders for the total destruction of the Taj. Opposition to the imperial command stepped up, with both Hindus and Muslims joining in one massive voice of protest. The danger that full-scale rebellion would ensue if the Taj was destroyed prompted the governor-general’s advisers to persuade Lord Wintock to withdraw the order.
Contemporary comment had it that “the people did not save the Taj Mahal, it was saved by its own beauty. If the Taj Mahal had not been beautiful, it would not have won such overwhelming support; Hindus and Muslims would not have united behind it to foil the British government’s designs.” Had the constructors of the Taj Mahal been able to reproduce in themselves the beauty which they produced so perfectly in their work of construction, they too would have been protected by their own quality. Just as virtue in a thing wins support for its cause, so virtue in humans has the same effect. It wins one friends from the enemy camp, appreciation even from strangers. A virtuous nature is the greatest asset a person can have, for with it comes support from all quarters.
The Taj Mahal’s virtue lies in its beauty, while man’s beauty lies in a virtuous nature. But man’s beauty should not be like that of a snake-a beautiful appearance marred by a venomous sting. How do men” sting”? By presenting a challenge to people’s political and economic interests; by repeatedly resorting to violence in their dealings with others; by constantly alienating people with senseless, impulsive actions.
Any virtue that one might have is cancelled out by such a “sting”, and prevents one from winning people’s affection.
It is the Taj Mahal’s silent beauty that has won people’s hearts. Who would have time for it if, in all its beauty, it tormented those who looked upon it?

Art Therapy

Art has the potential to change lives and often in profound ways.  When words are not enough, we turn to images and symbols to tell our stories.  And in telling our stories through art, we can find a path to health and wellness, emotional reparation, recovery and ultimately transformation.

Art Therapy is the deliberate use of art-making to address psychological and emotional needs.  Art Therapy uses art media and the creative process to help in areas such as, but not limited to:  fostering self-expression, enhancing coping skills, managing stress, and strengthening a sense of self. 

The Art Therapy Alliance

 Art speaks of originality, individuality, a creative process, graphic materials, colors, textures, spontaneity, risk, alternatives and imagination, (while) therapy implies taking care of, waiting, listening, healing, moving toward wholeness, growth provoking, medicine, human exchange, sympathetic understanding.

Art Therapy helps the individual in two ways.  The first is the process of creating art.  Scientific studies have demonstrated that art heals by altering the patient’s physiology, autonomic nervous system, hormonal balance and neurotransmitters.  Neurophysiologists believe that art making works much like mediation and prayer, activities that are all associated with similar brain activity.

The second is through the perception of the completed work.  It has been suggested that  “ Pictures are messages from ourselves to ourselves”.  Psychological healing is a creative process.  It requires time and the desire to achieve a new level of awareness, an active search for knowledge and problem solving skills.  Metaphor is a vital component of creativity because it allows familiar circumstances to be seen in new ways, it enhances understanding and presents opportunities for change.

Art Therapy assists in the integration and meeting of left and right brain hemispheres.  The art and the creative process is feminine, it is receptive.  The feminine is in surrender and deep trust.  The right hemisphere is intuitive, illogical, irrational, poetic, imaginative, romantic, mythical and religious.  The left-brain is logical, rational, mathematical, scientific and calculative.  The right hemisphere has a language that is expressed, released and revealed through art making, music and poetry.  The right brain has much to offer in assisting individuals move to health.

Recently, workshops were conducted in Hotel Paradise, Boulevard, Srinagar and Kashmir University by Dena Lawrence, an Australian Art Therapist. I, myself was a participant in both the events...

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Sameer Hussaini.

Peak Performer

A book published in America in 1986; entitled Peak Performers, makes study of the lives of a number of individuals in modern America who have played a heroic role in life. One point, which the writer especially emphasizes, is that a great mission can beget in a man the powerful urge to superior effort, which ultimately leads him to exceptional achievement.

America sent its first manned spacecraft to land on the moon in 1967. The launching of the rocket had been the result of the combined efforts of a large number of experts, who had been engaged to work for this mission. One of this team, a computer programmer, said that something extraordinary began to happen as the work got under way. The thousands of ordinary men and women, who had been working to make the space programme materialize, had all of a sudden been transformed into super-achievers. They had started performing with an efficiency that they had never in their whole lives been able to muster.

Within the short period of 18 months, all of the work had been accomplished with exceptional rapidity.

“Want to know why we’re doing so well?” our manager asked me. He pointed to the pale moon barely visible in the eastern sky. “People have been dreaming about going there for thousands of years. And we’re going to do it.”

“Want to know why we’re doing so well?” our manager asked me. He pointed to the pale moon barely visible in the eastern sky. “People have been dreaming about going there for thousands of years. And we’re going to do it.” It is understandable that what inspires a man more than anything is to have a great mission before him. That is what arouses a man’s hidden potential and makes him capable of all manner of sacrifices. It makes him, in short, a peak performer.

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Sameer Hussaini

THE WORLD AS I SEE IT

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...
"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.
"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
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Albert Einstein