HUMANISM
HUMANISM
Q.Who are you?
A. I am a human being.
Q. What is your age?
A. My age is Grown-up. I have completed the wonderful phase of childhood.
Q. What is your gender?
A. My gender is one of the two types.
Q. What is your skin color?
A. My color is skin color.
Q. What is your race?
A. My race is human.
Q. What is your nationality?
A. I am an Earthian, more appropriately a Universian.
Q. What is your caste?
A. I belong to human caste.
Q. What is your religion?
A. My religion is Humanism.
Q. What are your festivals?
A. The occasions that make people feel happy and allow them time to enjoy with their loved ones are my festivals. I enjoy celebrating every festival that I come across, especially if it makes my child happy.
Anyone can celebrate any festival. Festivals are not copyrighted by any belief system. The best festivals are the ones that can bring a smile on the face of children.
Q. Do you believe in God? Who is your God?
A. I believe in the vastness of the universe which is infinite and undefined. The forces of nature have a tendency to randomize everything and make it fair and square in the eyes of nature.
My God is the undefined vastness and laws of nature who always has its own ways of keeping things in control.
If one likes predictability and likes being in control, one can only try to fool oneself for as long as one can. The biggest truth is that things are random and unpredictable. Yet, the statistics have shown that randomness leads to the normal distribution leading to a standard bell-shaped curve, regardless of the parameters in question.
Imagine our sizes as compared to the vast universe. Our bodies are so small but our minds are limitless and can wander anywhere.
All of the above questions are very small and meaningless when we look at the vast universe. Imagine the ants fighting with each other to prove superiority when the tsunami or avalanche or earthquake is about to happen.
The important questions that can make a difference are:
Does one have adequate resources to meet the basic necessities? Is one educated?
If someone doesn’t have food to eat, clothes to wear, home to save oneself from the extremes of weather or more importantly if one doesn’t have enough resources to educate their young ones, the country should treat their children as their own.
It is said that India is a rich country of poor people. India also has great leaders. They say, ‘with great powers come great responsibility’. People who have great powers need to take the onus of upliftment of the poor people of India.
I have enjoyed growing up in India and pursuing further studies and career in the US. Both countries are very close to my heart. And as I say this, I have great respect for the other countries of the world. All countries are trying to make good of some part of our universal mother, Mother Earth, who is rotating fearlessly at all times and is saving us from the unseen forces of the vast universe.
The thing that I loved the most about the US is the education system for the children. All children are provided with great opportunities to gain basic education such that when they grow up, they can choose to pursue further studies and can apply for student loans if they need to. There are pros and cons everywhere, However, this system ensures that if someone wants to do more, that someone has been equipped with all the basics to do more. Not only this, they identify the gifted children and challenge them more to bring out the best in them based on their mental or physical capacity.
Imagine, if Einstein or other great scientists didn’t have an opportunity to study or innovate, what would the world have been. We wouldn’t be living in a world of comfort and luxury that we are living in today. Who knows we may still have been struggling for basic necessities for survival instead of enjoying the luxuries of life.
There are some selfish and lazy people who try to use lame reasons to prove themselves superior without having real talent. They avoid working while making hard-working people work even harder. History has shown us that people who promoted differences based on religion, race, color, gender, caste, and creed, as well as the people who promoted slavery had their selfish motives to lead the life of luxury at the cost of other people’s comfort. History has shown us the miseries caused by the people who killed other people in the name of religion and the people who killed each other over a piece of land without realizing that it is everyone’s universal fate to be turned into mere dust eventually.
No religion promotes injustice. No God promotes cruelty. None of the artificial boundaries are the work of nature. It is the price that we pay for being at the top of the animal kingdom.
Our job as educated people is to identify such foolishness and try to stop it from happening.
One way our future can be better is by promoting education and kindness among all. We are fortunate to be living in the world we have today. We should come together in making it even better or at least stop it from becoming worse.
Let’s unite! Let’s forget the differences. If there is a soul, it doesn’t have any form. The bodies are mundane. The forms can change while the feelings remain.
Let’s follow one religion, Humanism, the religion that promotes kindness and freedom.
Let’s try to raise the level of our country and our world as a whole.
Let’s be humans and follow HUMANISM!
Jaya Sonkar M.D., M.P.H.
5/30/19
©All rights reserved. Jaya Sonkar 2019