Friday, January 23, 2015

Life Skill: Way of Living

Gurdip Singh Bhamra

It is your way of life. It is my way of life. Part of it comes from the community I live in, part of it has been decided and fixed by me to facilitate my earning, my livelihood and my personal routine. It takes care of my preferential order of things. Together it called life skill.

It helps me to survive against the odds. It helps me and my family to succeed. It allows us to live with our dreams and it contributes to the fulfillment of our desires and it makes for our physical and spiritual needs. So I am happy with it. Yet it is not very much with me. Now I am in commanding position. I can change it if I like. I can change it if I am content with it and my contentment revolves around the satisfaction of my needs. Since it is a way of life, I call it comfortably and without any ostentation, my life skill.

My Life Skill governs my physical culture, when should I get up, what is the first thing I should I do in the morning and helps me in fixing my own order of preference. It helps me in making my decisions too as it is based on some traditions and some convention, the ones whom I honour as important.

Religion too thrives on three plains and it grows with retarded evolutionary process, still continues to grow. Any thing that stops growing becomes dwarf in the age civilization and soon looses its sheen and shine, therefore growth and development are primarily necessary for survival. Even a culture that stops growing, stops breathing and soon becomes part of junkyard. By growing, it is meant the growth with the needs of the hour and time to meet the demands of the age.

Interestingly religion works on three plains, physical. social and intellectual (Call it spiritual if you like.) At physical level it tells you how to develop an active physical culture which may contribute to your health, wellness and over all well being. It tells you what to eat and what to avoid. The objective of this part of a religion is to tell you how to thrive and survive and multiply. It consists of do’s and don’ts. Almost all religions have this part for its followers. The second plain is the social and it embodies all the rules and dictates of a milieu that keep the people together. Cooperation, collaboration and interpersonal communication, language and morality are part of this plain.

No man alone can make it to success and a every success is a social phenomenon and there are social factors that contribute to its success, therefore, the social discipline based on some social laws and social justice is also important and all religious practices conform to this. Religion itself is a social code and it should be honoured as social code as it helps the people to be able to live together.

The third is the highest plain which is based on the philosophical aspect of a religion. It consists of core idea which is in the form of philosophical justification of every thing that you do as part of your personal or social life skill. It is built around the intellectual play of mind.  You may call it intellectual domain of any religion. Some might call it spiritual aspect of their religion. One may find answers to the question such as the objective of life, the purpose of birth, the concept marriage and death and acceptance or rejection of something. In fact every life skill has a core similar to the intellectual domain where you find cognition and knowledge dressed with bits of wisdom which make it useful and logical nevertheless. Another important component of any life skill is its system of moral value or some basic values on which its system of social justice is based. These are the basic values which are conceded as the basis of the given social institution by is members. They are the minimum agreed upon sets of values which are accepted by one and all to deliver social justice.

Notwithstanding the variations and diversity the objective of all life skills is to enable a man to survive against the odds. Any life skill which lacks the dynamism may become extinct and therefore we are always in need of the latest edition of life skill



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