Articles
Faith in God
Tina Banerjee*
 Do you believe in God? If this question is asked in front of my young friends many will give different answers, every one will say that they have their own point of view towards believing or not believing in God, but while answering the question will they say things just to answer the question or will they say it from within to express honestly what they feel? The reality is many believe and many don't and there could be thousands of explanations and debates and I am surely not getting in to any of them, because I respect each ones belief. But what I want to share with my friends here is that our lives these days are not easy, life has become ruthless and has no mercy for anyone, we say it's the cut throat world, there is killing everywhere, we cant trust anyone, not even parents sometimes, the poor is getting poorer and the rich are getting richer by the day and there is corruption all around. If we say money is the solution for all miseries in our lives then listen to the painful stories of those who have it all, and still they suffer!
But we still live and will have to live in this world because its home we cant run away from here and we should not .So in a world like this where do we find peace, by peace I mean our own inner peace, getting relief within .Can we trust just one person to whom we can pour out our heart and soul, tell him everything we cannot tell anyone? Is there anyone who can love us without any reason, who can love us by accepting all our faults? Who can give complete peace and the energy and power so that you can cope up with this world?
Friends believe me there is someone, the one who created us, the whole universe, the world even beyond the universe, there is someone who cries when we cry and knows each and everything from the time we were born. HE or SHE who has many many forms, millions of names, but is ONE... I call her /him GOD. Good and bad, sadness and happiness they coexist in our lives the same way as day and night exists, and we understand that there are times we loose faith even in God, but that's what we should not do, I know its easier said than done but if we have faith in God in the most difficult times if nothing we will get immense peace within our soul, and we will get courage and strength to go through all the difficult times in our lives.
Iam not saying that one should become a saint and forget about material things in life, God has given us life so that we enjoy all the beautiful things that God has created but we should know how to differ between good and bad, we should understand that our actions in the present bear the fruits of future so we should always try to do good Karma. All iam saying is just try once to surrender yourself to God, in whichever form you believe and in whichever name you call him/her. Just close your eyes once a day and try to connect with God. Talk to him, take out all your sorrows, and let all your pain, anger, frustration flow down in tears. If you are angry with him tell him whatever you have in your mind express it out, then keep quiet for a minute, don't open your eyes, fold your hands and ask for forgiveness and thank him for all that you have. If one does this at lest twice in a week then the person will surely feel an immense change inside. I have done it and I still do it, it doesn't cost you anything but five minutes of your time and little respect. Iam not saying my life has changed drastically but yes I feel a sense of security, and I feel there is someone who is listening to me who can solve any problem, but we have to have faith. I have felt his/her warm blessings on me when I  was really confused in my life. Life will always have ups and downs but still by praying we get an immense sense of positive feeling to move on in life. One can feel an immense strength inside and slowly bitterness, hatred will fade away from one's heart. This is not magic but its faith and we have to surrender our self to the one who is supreme. But one request, have respect and love in your heart when you talk to God and be true to yourself. Don't ever loose faith in God, the Almighty is always with us, we are his children after all.
God Bless You All
(About Tina Banerjee - Ms.Tina Banerjee is a versatile writer to her credit. She writes on various topics, a graduate of Delhi University, Ms.Tina has also done her
Post Graduation in Public relations and Event management from Amity University and worked for PR firms in Delhi.)
RABINDRANATH TAGORE EDUCATIONAL IDEAS  Rabindranath Tagore's role in the innovation of educational ideas has been eclipsed by his fame as a poet. He was a pioneer in the field of education. For the last forty years of his life he was content to be a schoolmaster in humble rural surroundings, even when he had achieved fame such as no Indian had known before. He was one of the first, in India, to think out for himself and put in practice principles of education which have now become commonplace of educational theory, if not yet of practice.
Today we all know that what the child imbibes at home and in school is far more important than what he studies at college, that the teaching is more easily and naturally communicated through the child's mother-tongue than through an alien medium, that learning through activity is more real than through the written word, that wholesome education consists in training of all the senses along with the mind instead of cramming the brain with memorized knowledge, that culture is something much more than academic knowledge. But few of Rabindranath's countrymen took notice of him when he made his first experiments in education in 1901 with less than half a dozen pupils. A poet's whim, thought most of them. Even today few of his countrymen understand the significance of these principles in their national life. The schoolmaster is still the most neglected member of our community, despite the fact that Rabindranath attached more merit to what he taught to children in his school than to the Hibbert lectures he delivered before the distinguished audience at Oxfoard.
Mahatma Gandhi adopted the scheme of teaching through crafts many years after Rabindranath had worked it out at Santiniketan. In fact the Mahatma imported his first teachers for his basic School from Santiniketan.
If Rabindranath had done nothing else, what he did at Santiniketan and Sriniketan would be sufficient to rank him as one of the India's greatest nation-builders.
With the years, Rabindranath had won the world and the world in turn had won him. He sought his home everywhere in the world and would bring the world to his home. And so the little school for children at Santiniketan became a world university, Visva-Bharati, a centre for Indian Culture, a seminary for Eastern Studies and a meeting-place of the East and West. The poet selected for its motto an ancient Sanskrit verse, Yatra visvam bhavatieka nidam, which means, "Where the whole world meets in a single nest."
"Visva-Bharati", he declared, " represents India where she has her wealth of mind which is for all. Visva-Bharati acknowledges India's obligation to offer to others the hospitality of her best culture and India's right to accept from others their best."
In 1940 a year before he died, he put a letter in Gandhi's hand,
"Visva-Bharati is like a vessel which is carrying the cargo of my life's best treasure , and I hope it may claim special care from my countrymen for its preservation."
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