Teachers as Gurus
to
Build a Prosperous, Powerful &
Moral India
By
Dr T.H. Chowdary
* Director, Center for Telecom Management & Studies
* Chairman, Pragna Bharati (Intellect India), AP
* Former Information Technology Adviser, Government of A.P
Chairman & Managing Director
Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd., Bombay
T: +91 (40) 2784-6137/6667-1191(O)
F: +91 (40) 2789-6103/6667-1111 (O)
thc@satyam.com
Talk @ National Institute of Technology, Warangal: 5 Sept 2006
A Happy Teacher
• A teacher is happy when excelled by his pupil
A father is happy when excelled by his son
• What does a teacher do
– Agnaana timiraandhasya
– Gurur brahma….
• We hold a of human being as
– Amriyasya Putraah….
– Aham Brahmasmi…
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How to realise this potential
• Samskaaras:
• Birth, naming, Aksharabyaas, Yagnopavith,
Marriage, conception (seemantham)
(Prahlada, Abhimanya), death……
• Home: Parents: Grand-parents in times of
Yore; Dining Table as Class-room now
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School
• Gurus: Not teacher, coach, tutor, guide
but guru like Sandipani, Krishna # Drona
• Guru: Piteva putrasya, Sakheva sakhuah,
priyah priyaah
• Guru: my gurus:
• Nidamarthi Satyanarayana Murthy
• Rev.Fr.Jerome Desouza
• Lt.Col.Samuel Paul
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Vidya: Bharatiya vidya
Chaduvani vaadagnundagu
Chadivina sadasadviveka chaturata kalugun
Chaduvaga valayunu janulaku
Chadivincheda ninu naaryulodda chaduvumu
thandri
- 7th Skanda, Bhagavatamu
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What is education (1)
• Education is a liberating force, enables the
individual to rise form mere materiality to
superior planes of intellectual and spiritual
consciousness .
• Education gives us accumulated lessons of
heritage to carry it forward to posterity .
• The past is our foundation, the present our
material, the future our aim and summit. Each
must have its due and natural place in a national
system of education.
– Sri Aurobindo
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What is education (2)
We want that education by which
character is formed,
strength of mind is increased,
the intellect is expanded and by which
one can stand on one’s own feet.
Education is the manifestation of the
perfection already in man
- Swami Vivekananda
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What is education (3)
Education is the process of individual mind
getting its full possible development ……….It is a
long school which lasts a life time
- Dr. Zakir Hussain
I firmly believe the efficacy of the education as a
panacea for our social evils
- Dr.B.R. Ambedkar
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Education in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
• Art 26 (1) Every one has the right to
education, education shall be free, at least in
the elementary and fundamental stages.
Elementary education shall be compulsory.
Technical and professional education shall
be made generally available an d higher
education shall be equally accessible to all
on the basis of merit.
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Vidya, great wealth…..
Vidya nigoodhaguptamgu vittamu, roopamu purushaalikin
Vidya yasassu bhogakari, vidya gurundu, videshabandhuvun
Vidya visishta daivatamu, vidyaku saati dhanambu ledilan
Vidya nripaalapoojitamu, vidyanerunganivaadu marthyude?
- Barthrihari
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Values in Bharatiya Vidya
• Na vittena Tarpaneeyo manushyah
• Atmana vindate Veeryam
Vidyaya vindate Amritam
• Isa vasyamidam Jagat
• Parasparam Bhavayansah Sreyo
Paramavaapsyatha
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What Values (1)
Aatmaupanyena sarvatra samam pasyati
Itite gnaanamaakhyaatam.......
Guhyaat guhyataram mayaa
Etadaseshena vimrasya yathechasi, tathaa kuru
- Bh.Gita 18:62
No dogma freedom to think and act
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What Values (2)
• Respect for elders & others
– Matru devo bhava…….Sravan Kumar…….
• Lokasangraha
• Patriotism (& nationalism)
– Jananee Janma Bhoomischa Swargaadapi Gariyasi......
– Kacha’s example
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Tolerance: (True and False)
•
•
•
Sarvadharman parityajya maamekam saranam vraja
Yo yo yaam yam tanum bhaktah sraddhayaa
Sarvadeva namaskaarah naraayanam prati gachati ....
•
“I disagree with what you have to say but I shall defend to death your
right to say it”
- Voltaire, French philosopher and
inspirer of the French Revolution .
•
I am in the right. You are in the wrong. When you are stronger, you
ought to tolerate me for it is your duty to tolerate the truth . but when I
am stronger, I shall persecute you for this is my duty to persecute
errors.
- St. Augustine .
The most venerated Christian scholar and
propagandist for Christianity.
Krishna to Arjuna
•
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Co-operate; Net-work
• Om Sahanaavavatu, sahanu bhunaktu
• Sahaveeryam Karavaavahaih
• Tejasvinaavadheetamastu
• Maa Vidvishaavahaih,
• Om! Shantih, shantih, shantih!
• May we protect ourselves together, experience/
enjoy together, perform valorous deed together,
not quarrel among ourselves, may our learning
be brilliant.
• Peace, peace, peace !!! ( for all, everywhere, all
the time))
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Student or Vidyarthi
• Study what teacher/master/tutor tells
Or
• Seek ( from the Guru) knowledge, wisdom, Buddhi, viveka
• Idam te na atapskaaya, na-abhaktaya kadaachana
Na cha asushrooshave vaachyam
Na cha maam yoh abhyasuyati
-Bhagavad Gita 18.67
• Nachiketa, Dhruva…
• Bhimrao Ambedkar
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How do we learn?
Paadam gurubhyah
Paadam brahmachaaribhyah
Paadam swamedhayaa
Paadam kaalakramenacha
• Life-long learning for
Life-long employability
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A GURU
• The job of the master is not merely to
bequeath a store of knowledge to his pupils
but to instill in them a thirst for truth and
inspiration and drill them in proper methods
of research.
• 70% of living Nobel Laureates are teaching
in US ‘Varsities
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What happened to
Bharatiya vidyaa?
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Macaulay in British Parliament
" I have traveled across the length and breadth of India
and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is
a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such
high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not
think we would ever conquer this country, unless we
break the very backbone of this nation, which is her
spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I
propose that we replace her old and ancient education
system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that
is foreign and English is good and greater than their
own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native selfculture and they will become what we want them, a
truly dominated nation.”
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Macaulay's famous Minute of
1835
"We must at present do our best to form a
class of persons, Indians in blood and
colour, but English in taste in opinions,
in morals and intellect”
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Macaulay de-Indianises
education
• Macaulay’s (in) famous note in1838 to discard the
Indian system of education and introduce the
British system to produce “a class of people,
Indian only in colour and blood but British in
tastes, values, views and thoughts…”
• Pt.Nehru proudly told John Kenneth Galbraith that
he is the last Englishman to rule India.
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Build a great nation-state:Bharat
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What Makes a Nation Great &
Epoch Maker
•
•
•
•
The British centuries
The American century
Wealth; Economic Power
Military power & Willingness to deploy/project it
around the globe
• Knowledge Production R&D
• Spirituality- Ethics, morality
Gita Rahasya ( Lokamanya Tilak)
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Post –Liberalisation Bharat
• GDP Growth - Real Hindu rate now
• Booming Exports - I.T, BT, KPO &
services
• Home to many Fortune 500’s R&D
• Reservoir of Talents
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World afflicted by
“clash of civilisations”
• The intolerant Semetic religions at each
others’ throats
• Axis of Evil – Nuclear Rogue States
• Virtual Caliphate – Global terrorism
• Insurgencies & Regime changes
• Conversion: 3rd Millennium - Asia for
Christ
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Bharat’s Wisdom
“The seeds of war are planted in the minds of
men. Therefore, the defences for peace must be
built in mens’ minds
- UNESCO
• The world’s intellectuals/ scientists look to
Sanatana Dharma / Eastern Philosophy
Ilya Prigogeniev – Theory of Chaos –
“Brahma- Vishnu-Mahesa” - Loop
• Cosmogony - Bharat’s Postulates &
Understanding
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Ridding the World of the weight
of Evil
•
•
•
•
•
•
Globalisation
Environment
Seeking & Search for Indian talent
US Seeks our alliance
China-Confucius Institute - Dalai Lama
Japan’s resurgence – No Asian country to go under US hegemony
Koizomo’s visit to the shrine for the WW II-dead
• Right Education – Vidya
• Information  Knowledge
Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom
Buddhi, Viveka
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Jagatguru
• Om Sahanaavavatu, sahanu bhunaktu
• Sahaveeryam Karavaavahaih
• Tejasvinaavadheetamastu
• Maa Vidvishaavahaih,
• Om! Shantih, shantih, shantih!
• May we protect ourselves together, experience/
enjoy together, perform valorous deed together,
not quarrel among ourselves, may our learning
be brilliant.
• Peace, peace, peace !!! ( for all, everywhere, all
the time))
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Lincoln’s Letter to his son’s
Teacher
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Lincoln’s Letter to his son’s
Headmaster
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Respected Teacher,
My son will have to learn, I know
That all men are not just, all men are not true, but teach him also
That for every scoundrel, there is a Hero
That for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader
Teach him that for every enemy, there is a friend
It will take time, I know; but teach him if you can
That a dollar earned is of far more value than five found
Teach him to learn to lose and also enjoy winning
Steer him away from envy, if you can
Teach him the secret of quiet laughter
Let him learn early that the Bullies are easiest to Lick
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Lincoln’s Letter to his son’s
Headmaster
• Teach him if you can, the wonder of books…
• But also give him Quiet time to ponder over the eternal mystery of
birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hills – side
• In school teach him it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat
• Teach him to have faith in his own ideas even if everyone tells him
they are wrong
• Teach him to be gentle with gentle people and tough with the tough
• Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone
is getting on the Bandwagon
• Teach him to listen to all men but teach him also to filter all he hears
on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through
• Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad
• Teach him there is no shame in tears
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Lincoln’s Letter to his son’s
Headmaster
• Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness
• Teach him to sell his Brawn and Brain to the highest bidders, but never
to put a price tag on his heart and soul
• Teach him to close his Ears to a Howling Mob…. And to stand and
Fight
• If he thinks he is right Treat him gently; but do not cuddle him because
only the test of Fire Makes Fine Steel
• Let him have the courage to be important
• Let him have the patience to brave
• Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself because then he will
always have sublime faith in mankind
• This is a bid order; but see what you can do
• He is such a fine little fellow, my son.
- Abraham Lincoln.
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Becoming into a
Poorna Purusha
or
Sthitha Pragna
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Culture
• We must add to the sum total of happiness in life
• Culture is obedience to unenforceable laws.
Knowing something of everything & everything of
something
• The richest man is the one who has the fewest
wants
• One man with conviction is the majority .
Lincoln, Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi,
• Md.Ali Jinnah ( but thro’evil means)
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Culture (1)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Gentleman: who never inflicts pain upon others
Punctuality, Queuing, Gratefulness
Thummu, Avulintha hasambu, nisteevanamu
Talking on cell phone in lifts, waiting rooms,
while driving & walking & traveling in plane, bus,
train…
Telephone Etiquette
Unwanted guest; visiting w/o appointment
Good habits, habits to work for you
Alpudepudu palku aadambaramu ganu
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Culture (2)
• …the true measure of man is not where he
stands in moments of comfort and
convenience but where he stands at times
of challenge and controversy”
- Martin Luther King
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Culture (3)
Time for Everything
Take time for workIt is the price of success.
Take time to thinkIt is the source of power.
Take time to playIt is the secret of youth.
Take time to readIt is the foundation of wisdom.
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Culture (4)
•
•
•
•
•
Noman is an island, entire of itself
Every man is a piece of the continent…
Everyman’s death diminishes me
Because I am involved in mankind,
And, therefore, never seem to know for when the
bell tolls
• It tolls for thee
– John Donnne
• ( I am not an Island - K A Abbas)
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Culture (5)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel
And the former called the latter, ‘ Little Prig!
Bun replied,
You are doubtless very big
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere
And I thank it no disgrace
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Culture (6)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
To occupy my place
If I am not so large as you
You are not so small as I
And not half so spry
I’ll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel trace
Talents differ, all is well & wisely put
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a mnt.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Knowledge (1)
 Yaksha
•
•
•
•
•
Prasna
What rescues man in all dangers?
Courage is man’s salvation in danger
By the study of which science does man become wise?
Not by studying any sastra does man become wise. It is by association
with the great in wisdom, that he get wisdom.
What is more nobly sustaining than the earth?
The mother who brings up the children she has borne, is nobler and
more sustaining than the earth
What is higher than the sky?
The father
What befriends a traveler?
Learning
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Knowledge (2)
• Who accompanies a man in death?
Dharma. That alone accompanies the soul in its solitary journey after
death.
• What is happiness?
Happiness is the result of good conduct
• What is that abandoning which man becomes loved by all?
Pride- for, abandoning that, man will be loved by all
• What is that, by giving up which, man becomes rich?
Desire- getting rid of it, man becomes wealthy
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Knowledge (3)
• What makes one a real brahmana? Is it birth, good conduct or
learning?
Birth and learning do not make on e a brahmana. Good conduct alone
does, However learned a person may be, he will not be a brahmana if
he is a slave to bad habits. Even though he may be learned in the four
Vedas, a man of bad conduct falls to a lower class.
• What is the greatest wonder in the world?
Every day, men see creatures depart to Yama’s abode and yet, those
who remain, seek to live for ever. This verily is the greatest wonder
- Mahabharata
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Wise thoughts, sage words
Hats off to the past
Coats off to the future
– American Proverb
Work hard to innovate and solve rather than
wait for answers from on high
– Israel Defence Forces
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Indefinite perfectibility of man
Continuous learning and striving
• People retain 23% of what they hear
• People retain 43% of what they sea & hear
• People retain 70% of what they hear, see & do
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight
But they, while their companions slept
Were toiling onwards through the night
- Crom well king Charles I
“ For Gods sake, go”1 Unmoved
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When to Speak or be Silent
It is better to sit silent and be thought a
fool than to stand up and talk and prove
you are fool
– Lord Dennis advice to an
young man about to go to
the Bar
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Of what caliber should you be?
• God give us men, a time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands
Men whom the lust of office does not kill
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy
Men who possess opinions and a will
Men who love honour, Men who cannot lie
-J.G. Holland
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Happiness - a State of Mind
•
•
•
•
•
Aatmaarama
Swaatassukhaya – Tulasidas
Viswanatha Ramayana
Healthy bodyPositive thoughts, Optimism
(misanthrope X Philanthrope)
• Half full or Half empty
• Work as a consecration, swadharma, karmanyevaadhi
Kaaraste
maa faleshu kadaachana…
• Share happiness, joy- not sadness, misery
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Happiness: (1)
• Stone walls do not a
Prison make
Nor iron bars a cage
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage
-LOVELACE to Althea from Prison
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Happiness: (2)
• The man that hath no music in himself
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils
The motious of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as E rebus
Let no such man be trusted
- Shakespeare in Merchant of Venice
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Happiness (3)
• Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan
–
–
–
–
Among the life’s dying embers
These are my regrets
When I am right, no one remembers
When I am wrong no one forgets
 The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep
- Robert Frost
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Happiness (4)
 Character of a Happy Life
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill;
Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who hath his life from rumours freed;
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Happiness (5)
 Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;
Who God doth late and early pray\More of his grace than gifts to lend
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.
Sir Henry Wotton
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Happiness (6)
• “… We hold these Truths to be self-evident,
that all Men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, an d the Pursuit of
Happiness…”
- Declaration of Independence,
United States of America, July 4, 1776
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Happiness (7)
• And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an Hour
Te Tao of physics
-
Fritj of Capra
• Life’s battles do not always go
To the strongest or fastest mean
Soon or late the man who wins
Is the who thinks he can
Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness vough
Each sting that bids not sit nor stand, but go!
-Robert Browning
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DOGMA OR FREE THINKING
• Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken
Up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless starving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear street of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert
sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.
-Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore
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Entitlement, Employment,
Entrepreneurship
• “You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot keep out trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage
by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them
What they could do for themselves.” - Abraham Lincoln
(Source: Freedom First, May 1989)
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Success and Risk
• Don’t keep forever on the public road, going only
where other have gone. Leave the beaten path
occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be
certain to find something you have never seen
before. It will be a little thing but do not ignore it.
Follow it up; explore around it, one discovery will
lead to another and before you know it, you will
have something really worth thinking about
Alexander Graham Bell
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Success
• Sow a thought and reap an act
Sow an act, reap a habit
Sow a habit, reap a character
Sow a character, reap a destiny
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Risk and Reward
• I shall be telling with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in the woods and I
I took the one less travelled by
And that has made all the difference
- Robert Frost
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The Oath Guru Administers
I exhort you as follows:
• Speak the truth.
• Walk in the way of the duty
• Neglect not the study of higher knowledge
• Treat they teacher with respect and
gratitude.
• And fail not in taking upon thyself the
burden of life
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Lives of Great Men
• Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And, departing, leave behind us
Foot prints on the sands of time
– Long fellow
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Auto-biographies/ Life story of great men
•
Lives of great men all remind us we may make our lives sublime and
departing leave
behind us foot prints on the sands of time.
• Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
• Lee Kuan Yew
• Henry Ford
• Jamshedji Tata, Dhirubhai Ambani, G D Birla
• Khrushchev, Gorbachev
• Ben Gurion, Golda Mair
• Balagangadhar Tilak – Gita Rahasya
• Margaret Thatcher
• Irvine Shroedinger
• Andy Grove
• Einstein
• Oppenhammer
• Betrand Russel
• K M Munshi
• Rajaji
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Dhanyawad:
Thank You
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