Quote of the week:
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"Singalath theevinukkoar paalamaippoam
sedhuvai maeduruthi veedhisamaippaom
... ... ...
Kasi nagarpulavar paesumuraithaan
kaanchiyir kaetpadharkoar karuviseivoam...."
- Barathiar
[Singla(m) - Srilanka; theev(u) - island; paalam - bridge;
amaippoam - let us build; sedhu - sea; maedu - (upward) slope; veedhi
- road; nagar - city; pulavar - poet; urai - lecture; Kaanchi -
Kanchipuram; kaetpadhark(u) - to hear; oar - one; karuvi - device;
seivoam - let us make]
[Let us construct a bridge to Sri lanka, laying the road over the
sea; let us invent a device to hear the scholar's lecture in Kaasi from
Kanchipuram.]
{I read somewhere that Barathiar sung this song, long before the
thought to construct the Pamban bridge in Rameswaram arose; and even
before the invention of telephone. Also, if the meaning of 'sedhu' is
wrong pls. let me know. Hope i'm right. }
Kural of the week:
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Oruththaarkku orunaalai inbam poruththaarkkup
ponrun thunaiyum pugazh.
[Oruththaar - one who punished other; oru - one; naal - day; inbam
- happiness; poruththaar - one who has patience; ponru - world; thunai -
support; pugazh - praise]
[One who punishes the other is happy only for that moment, while
who forgives will be praised forever.]
Why do we worship idols ?
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Idol worshipping is a way of the sages devised to give the early
people, the masses of India, something concrete, something tangible,
to visualise and serve God, instead of thinking of Him as formless and
abstract.
Some Supreme Forces must have created this world. Now we call
this Force, God. But nobody has seen God, so we don't know what God
looks like. But we believe He is everywhere. Now we give God a form...
like the idol. So when we pray, the idol in front of us, makes us
aware of God's presence and we feel that He is with us. We are
therefore able to concentrate.
However, idol worshipping and other rituals are only the first
step towards realising God. The second is to love and serve our fellow
beings - in fact, to love and serve all God's creations. The third
is to study, enlighten and educate ourselves and those around us. The
ultimate step is above these. Though there is nothing wrong with the
first step, we are not those early masses anymore. We are an
enlightened generation, and it is time for us to evolve spiritually
along the greater steps towards God realization, which are service &
enlightenment.
[As u know, certainly not mine, taken from a web site. - Anbu]
Site of the week:
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Government of India's website, brought to you by Ministry of
External Affairs with links to News, culture, science & technology,
tourism, links, facts, states... etc.
http://india.indiagov.org/
The writings and the translations were made with the little knowledge, I had then and hence may not be exact.
My other pages: