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

Revolution in the Human Being

All the great conquerors in human history have nothing but political victories to their credit. They changed governments, but they failed to change human beings. All the successes in history are instances of a change of government, rather than a change brought about in human beings. In the Indian scenario, a ‘Mahatma’ apparently succeeded in bringing about a change in the system. Still, the Indian example is not very different either. The government changed hands in 1947. Foreign rule was replaced by home rule. But so far as human beings were concerned, no real change was effected.

This is the main reason why change in the government does not become synonymous with a change of circumstances. On the contrary, in most cases the new system ushered in the wake of the change in the government is worse than the previous one. As the saying goes: ‘A revolution is a successful effort to get rid of a bad government and set up a worse. Throughout human history, the only exception to this rule is that of the Prophet Muhammad, The revolution, brought about by the Prophet changed not only the government but also the human beings under it.

The basic reason for this difference can be traced to the difference between the method of the Prophet and that of the political leader, who always takes up political and economic issues. He achieves his goal by inciting people to rise against the ruler of the time. On the other hand, the Prophet takes up issues concerning the life Hereafter. He invites people to think critically of their ownselves. While a leader launches his movement on the basis of arriving at a reckoning with others, the Prophet’s movement is based on one’s own self-appraisal. It is these different approaches which lead to different consequences in the two types of movements.

The Prophet’s way and the experience of history show us that striving for the fall of a government is not a worthwhile goal. Change the human being and then the system of the government will change on its own.

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Sameer Hussaini

Secret of Success

“I have reached my present position by climbing a ladder and not by coming up to it in a lift.” This observation was made by a tailor who had started with nothing but his own two hands and the will to work, and who had become eminently successful in his line of business. “Making a good coat is not child’s play. The whole process is so complicated that without detailed information as to how to proceed, long experience and a high degree of skill, it is almost impossible to accomplish. It is only after a lifetime of hard work that I have succeeded in running a prosperous shop in the city.”

The tailor went on to explain how he had served his apprenticeship under the guidance of an expert tailor. Just learning the art of cutting and sewing had taken him five long years. When he opened his own little shop, he discovered that he had difficulty in giving his customers a good fitting. This was because during his apprenticeship he had never really grasped the fact that people could be of such different shapes and sizes. He therefore set himself to the task of studying human anatomy, but it was only after many years of effort that he could make a coat with an absolutely perfect fitting. He eventually became so expert in this that he could even give perfect fittings to those who unfortunately suffered from deformities-such as hunchbacks. “In any type of work, there are many things which one has to learn on one’s own. Often one cannot foresee these things at the outset, and each obstacle has to be overcome by hard work and ingenuity.”

The tailor talked of many things of this nature concerning his skills, and it seemed to me as though I were listening to a lecture on the building of the nation by some very experienced person.

In truth, the only way to solve our economic and social problems is to follow the example of the tailor. After this initial apprenticeship, he had gone ahead and done things on his own. He had gone up by the stairs and not by the lift. There are no buttons, which you can just push and then automatically reach your goals. You can only make progress step by step. Progress can seldom be made by leaps and bounds. By means of the ladder you can progress even to the stage of owning the lift, but you cannot make a success of your life by starting with the lift and expecting it to do everything for you.

Looking forward to your comments...

Human Personality

If from a vessel containing water a single drop is found to be brackish, it means that all of the liquid is undrinkable. We need sample only of one drop to know with certainty what the rest will be like. Much the same is true of the human personality. It is like an over brimming vessel which keeps on shedding drops for other people to savour, to find sweet or brackish as the case may be. Small instances of an individual’s behaviour and quite short interludes in his company are generally sufficient to tell us what his overall personality is like. A thoughtless remark, an unfair manoeuvre, a failure to give much-needed sympathy or support, a devious transaction—all these are the plain indicators, like those brackish drops of water from the larger vessel, which indicate the lack of integrity or callousness of the person you are dealing with.

The human personality has the same homogeneity as water. A single human weakness cannot therefore be considered in isolation, as if it were an exception. It has to be looked upon as being representative of the entire personality. If an individual proves unreliable in one matter, he is likely to evince the same unreliability in other matters; if he is guilty of untrustworthiness on one occasion, the chances are that this trait will show up time and time again.

There is only one kind of person who is an exception to that rule, and that is the one who subjects his own behaviour to constant re-appraisal, who is continually scrutinizing himself for weaknesses and faults and who, once having found such faults, wastes no time in rooting them out.

A man who has made a mistake can completely erase the marks of what is an unfortunate experience for others by admitting his mistake and begging forgiveness. Some people are pricked by their consciences, but do nothing to assuage the ruffled feelings of others, thinking that to do so would be sheer weakness and would mean a loss of face. Such people can never have healthy social relationships and can never win the respect of their fellow men. They do not realize that a man displays his true mettle when he sees his own wrong actions for what they are, and humbly asks forgiveness.

It is only he who has learned the art of moral introspection who will, in the long run, prove himself a person of inviolable integrity.

Looking forward to your valuable comments.