In the nineteenth century, Calcutta University was a a famous university for advanced degree and students from all parts of the country, came to receive their education. One of the rules for admission to this university was that the student must have reached the minimum age of sixteen years at the time of admission. A new student who was only fourteen years old, wrote sixteen years his age in the admission form as all the other students were doing. He did not know the rule. During his first year, at the University he came to know about the rule and realized his mistake. He felt deeply sorry for his false statement, approached the principal of his college and made a confession. He was told that now the mistake could not be corrected. He approached the Registrar of the University and received the same reply. What was to be done now? How to get his mistake corrected? As a punishment for giving false statement, he discontinued his University education for two years!

This student was Shree Ashvinikumar Dutt, who turned out later as a great educationalist in the state of Bengal.

Now there are variations in the truthfulness also

Should a soldier captured in battle tell his captors false information about the deployment and strategies of his own army?

 Should a physician tell a terminally ill and deeply depressed patient what he knows and estimates to be the patient’s condition and life expectancy if the patient asks?

 We should practice honesty and truthfulness in our life by being consistent with it.

What we say we should practice and by doing so we will ensure rectitude of conduct.If mother tells children not to talk bad about his friends and she herself talks bad about her mother in law in a dirty way,then obviously mother can’t ensure rectitude of conduct in our life and nor will she develop the same in her child.The child will be confused why is mother talking bad about grandmother when she is  telling me not to speak bad about my friends.

For example mother asks her son to lie on phone that she is not their ,then obviously for some petty gain she is going away from rectitude of conduct in her life.So what example is she setting of honesty and truthfulness. Half truth and truth by omission of facts is also wrong. We have to practice what we say and be consistent with it..Only perseverance and not to stray away from honesty for petty gains will ensure rectitude of conduct in our lives.

Aarti

Righteous: upright, moral, justified.

 Self-righteous: confident of being righteous.

Righteous is positive, while self-righteous is negative. Terrorists were those who have blinded themselves with self-righteousness and were not amenable to reason and logic. When this small minority resorts to coercion … they turn into terrorists.This is example of extreme self righteousness.They feel they are killing and doing acts of destruction for a cause which is justified and correct from his heart.

In case of big organisations if CEO happens to be having a image of himself as a self righteous man the whole organisation can run into a deep trouble.

Shivsena who comes and destroys flowers and greeting card on valentines day and hurts  the couples ,feel that their cause is right .They are not letting ideas from west invade into east.This act comes from feeling of self righteousness.

Adolf Hitler who led the world war 2 should be called self righteous man who ordered killing of thousand of jews in gas chambers as he felt he was right .

This attitude is developed due to certain beliefs and ideas which are thought process of persons upbringing.The way the person is brought up from childhood determines his values.He feels he is right in all possible ways than others.Their is no rational and logical thinking .

Aarti

Errors happen by mistakenly they are not purpousefully planned to misguide .Lies are said with selfish or any other reason.Lies are meant to misguide people . We should have attitude of forgiving the person who errors in things and help them correct their errors.We should have a attitude correcting and trying to change the person who has lied.

The bottom line is that mistakes are actually the path to being successful. Do not stop and give up simply because you made a mistake, learn from it and move on. We should have a healthy attitude towards our own mistakes .We should have a attitude from which we learn from our mistakes and improve ourselves. Mistakes can cause you to stop and take a look at yourself and what limitations or barriers are in the way. They are an opportunity to learn about yourself and if you need to change some of your behaviors. It is an opportunity to accept responsibility and acknowledge when you make a mistake, admit the mistake and continue on.

Becoming defensive is a sign that you are having difficulty in taking ownership for your mistakes. No one is perfect and no one is right all the time. It is a time when you should be looking for what you can learn from the situation. It is important if you have made a mistake ,that you move forward and do not dwell in the past. Mistakes are an opportunity to pick yourself up after the fall and try again. Do not let mistakes discourage you, continue to take risks and take on new challenges. Mistakes are opportunities for growth, some of the biggest successes for an organization started out as a mistake and was changed into a success.

Aarti

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.  ~Winston Churchill

A lie has speed, but truth has endurance. 

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
—Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948) 

People lie and are dishonest for many reasons

.Children lie and are dishonest out of fear that  the mother will punish them.In such cases we need to change our attitude which develops fear in the child’s mind  and have a friendly and convincing attitude that she will understand the problem rather than punish the child.

Some people lie and are dishonest completely inside ,outside and in  all possible  ways.We should avoid such people.This has been rightly said by   ancient minister Arya Chankya in his chankya neeti where he sites example of  Duryodhana who can not be changed come what may.

Some people lie and are dishonest just due to greed,selfishness and lack of good moral values.We should not despise or have attitude of looking down upon them but try to make them see the rightness of the issue so that they  atleast attempt to change.Its not easy to shift from dishonesty and lies to honesty and truthfulness.But we have to give the person the time .These people are not weak in character and mind.

Some people lie out of weakness of character.They prefer to hide behind lies and dishonesty.When people don’t  achieve their goals due to lack of skill,knowledge efficiency confidence they resort to lying and are dishonest.By lying and being dishonest,these people  get out of problem temporarily but get into deeper problem.Here people have to develop sympathetic and positive attitude towards them and pull them out of the situation.They do not wan’t to lie and be dishonest if given help and encouragement they do manage to come out of the problem.The time and patience will be required,the change will not take place overnight.

Aarti

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There is a subtle, yet important, difference between excellence and perfection. Excellence means doing the very best that you possibly can at all times.

For some occupations like that of a singer ,surgeons and doctors and diamond polishing an extremely high degree of perfection and accuracy is required.One note here and their the song is ruined. If a brain surgeon were going to perform a delicate operation on your brain, perfection and precision would be highly appreciated. However, as the brain surgeon would tell you, (and as you will note in all the hospital forms that you have to sign,) neither perfection nor precision is absolutely guaranteed.  

Now, let us talk about people who are opposite in nature.The sloppiness in words and deeds does not develop any good habit or skill in a person.Such a person does give a mechanical output but it does not give any good long lasting outcome like honesty,perfection or building up of character.Rather no body believes in such kind of people,Such people are given less important tasks  in schools,offices at homes and in society slowly leading to down fall of a person loosing his moral values as welll as his confidence to perform.

Aarti

Countries like China are having responsible attitude towards climate change and environmental issues.People have irresponsible attitude towards environmental problems.Hence they are not bothered about recycling plastics and carry bags.Teenagers having responsible attitude towards weight loss.People having responsible attitude towards  global warming.

 Now let us take example of student who has to appear for exams.If he has responsible attitude towards studies,he manages to finish his studies in time keeping himself on straight path.But a student who has irresponsible attitude towards studies,does not finish his studies and in state of panic deviates away from straight path by resorting to immoral and dishonest methods like copying in exam.He fails not only in his exam but also in his  own eyes leading to his downfall.

Aarti

But what about the adult people? Why do we tell lies and show dishonesty? The examples of dishonesty and lies are many. The most common being the tax deception. And the most shocking fact is those who are economically more stable and whom we can categorize as rich person are evading huge amount of tax. Generally there is a tendency or prejudice in our mind that we relate poverty with crime, dishonesty, greed or any other undeserving attributes. But then how can we justify the incidents of fraud in Satyam Computers.

Does honesty actually result from active resistance of temptation or it is the absence of temptation which underlines the determination of the person? Recently I came through an interesting finding by  psychologists at Harvard University. The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and carried out by Joshua Greene, Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The researchers examined neural activity in individuals confronted with opportunities for dishonest gain through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and observed individuals who behave honestly show no additional control related activity or other activity when choosing to behave honestly. Whereas dishonest people show increased activity in the control-related regions of prefontral cortex both while choosing to behave dishonestly and when abstained from dishonesty. According to them, “the behavioral and fMRI data support the Grace hypothesis over the Will hypothesis, suggesting that honest moral decisions depend more on the absence of temptation than on the active resistance of temptation”.

Gandhari, the epic character from Mahabharata , an exemplary character who spent her whole life as a blind person just because the man whom she married was blind (Dhritarashtra).There was absence of temptation in her mind which may have insisted her to do it. Not only that, she was an ardent lover of truth. Through out her life she followed truth only. Her passion of truth was so much that when the war of Kurukshetra began, Duryodhan came to her for blessings, she blessed him saying “Yato Dharmastato Jayah”…May Dharma be victorious. “Dharma” is here truthfulness . She did not bless her son as “May you become victorious”. She knew that she cannot leave truth whatever the situation may be and here Truth was with the Pandavas. Her honesty was reflected in her speech. In real life, Gandharis are very rare.

Jayati

People today are well informed ,well educated and aware of their social responsibilities.They are more liberal in thoughts and are not conservative any more.The society has removed the do’s and don’ts and every body is free to express and practice what he thinks. The technology like email can make you reach a person across the globe in a second.This is to say that the technology leap has developed these potentials by increasing the access to information on issues from health,education,science etc. at the click of the mouse. People accept English as a global language.Let us say a single language across the globe has helped in developing the potential along with the technology

 Every person in his own way is contributing.Let us take example of Amitabh Bacchan ,if his blog is read ,he in his  own way is trying to contribute towards building a civilization by posting many good things on moral standards and things which will make world a better community.I would say this is the sign of human potentialities. Today we have people from both genders functioning in all fields from train driver,to astronaut like Kalpana Chawala.We have fairly got out of gender biased nature of society.Women are equally contributing in building up of civilization.The potential is tremendous which has to be diverted in right way to give fruitful results than destruction.

Today the biggest potential I see is clarity of vision and readiness to pursue their goals come what may.This helps them to face challenges in the new emergence of civilsation.Biggest potential is human potential .People are socially and environmentally aware and   devoted to causes like shairing social responsibilities likeMedha Patkar for Narmada mata bachao andolan,Baba Amte for leprosy concern. Today we think of our selves as a global citizen.

 Surely the man will rise to the challenge and then greedy and scrupulous will try to manipulate.

People will not get carried away now as he is aware from his past knowledge that people for their own personal,party benefits and fame try to manipulate rather than thinking of the development of entire humanity.Man’s thinking has well progressed and the judging capabilities to decide what is right and good for civilization.  Today’s man has an excellent thought process with good logical and analytical thinking and capacity to integrate backwards to erode away the problem at the roots itself.They are liberal and not conservative any more..Now,people from China are also learning English. There is no more concept of belonging to a certain country .World has united into one geographic community and we do consider ourselves part of this global community.Today people don’t get discriminated on basis of caste,creed ,religion or any criteria.

Aarti

Many times we focus on leadership traits associated with success, but it is interesting to understand failures of leadership as well. The traits  associated with leadership failures. This includes:

• A Shift in Focus. when leaders forget the big picture and shift focus on the little things. Like making money or fixating on fame as the reason why they are doing what they are doing. Will fail to mobilize the resourse of humanity towards building of a world civilisation
• Poor Communication. When leaders fail to communicate properly that hampers resources of humanity towards building of a world civilisation Great leaders understand that followers don’t read minds. Great leadership is about communicate ideas.
• Risk Aversion. This trait talks about the fear of failure and how past successes can be a treasure.
• Ethics Slip. When leaders claim one thing and do another ,it will fail to mobilize the resources of humanity.There has to be a close relationship between what a leader does and what he/she is.
• Poor Self-Management.A leader incapable of taking care of him/herself to be able to achieve goals. (Physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs)  fails miserably.
• Lost Love. Leaders who fail to remember  the vision that brought them there slip away from track

Examples of good leaders for bad cause

Hitler was not a bad leader ,infact he could mobilise masses for wrong cause.

Leader of gang which plans theft and robberies is a good leader with a wrong cause.

Examples of bad leadership with good cause

Health project by Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton failed miserably because he was not efficent at leadership in health sector.

Aarti

Chan Nai-ming, 38, who called himself “Big Crook” on the Internet, was earlier convicted of illegally uploading three Hollywood films, “Daredevil,” “Red Planet” and “Miss Congeniality,” onto a Web site so that others could obtain them.

Chan is the first person in the world to be convicted and jailed for illegal online sharing of copyrighted material using the BitTorrent software.

The software allows computer users share large chunks of data in a speedy way. But movie and music industries say the illegal online sharing of files causes them losses of millions of dollars a year.

Chan was found guilty last month of three counts of attempting to distribute copyrighted material without authorization.

Chan filed for an appeal following his sentencing and was granted bail of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$641; euro546).

Magistrate said Chan’s act greatly hurt the interest of the copyrighted material’s owner although he did not make any profit from uploading the movies onto the Internet.

“The message has to be sent out by courts that the distribution of infringing copies, to the prejudice of copyright owners, particularly by seeding films onto the Internet, will not be treated leniently,”was the verdict of judgment.

“A sentence of imprisonment is imperative. There is no basis for suspending such a sentence,”. was the verdict of the magistrate.

Because of its speed, BitTorrent steadily gained in popularity after the recording industry began cracking down on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established file-sharing software.

Aarti

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