Soul of Man

There are two kinds of people. Those who love to go with the flow. Then there are those who make a stand for their convictions no matter how contrary and rough the current is. Of the latter I shall cite two. Socrates was one who stood for his convictions. Jesus is another. Mind you what the Greek philosopher stood for and the purpose for which Jesus accepted death were for entirely different reasons. Yet their souls had affixed the shape of Truth in different order. Order of the spirit of man (who didn’t take anything for granted or heresay as true) gave Socrates to accept the verdict of the state however unjust is one. The other order led Jesus to Golgotha because he submitted to a spirit of higher Truth.

It was Thomas Paine who observed that he who has never ruffled anyone with a contrary opinion was a hypocrite. Spirit of the times is gentle and highly seductive to those who have chosen to take the line of least resistance. Such a person may get elected to the highest office but he has sold himself to be hatchet man for the majority.
Soul is kind of representation and Socrates represented every seeker of Truth who wielded reason as a scalpel to remove the flab from Truth which only made it appear as something else.

Spirit of the times is the vector of so many traditions culture and norms that peoples all across the globe may impact on each. But soul of man gives him a special insight and the wherewithal to let his spirit work with the guiding spirit of his times.

2.
Spirit of the times accept Dalai Lama as a spiritual leader; but how he represents to the Tibetans and to the People’s Republic of China holds a difference. Those Tibetans in exile or those who are left behind see him as a reincarnation of the last lama. To the man on the street he someone worthy of respect as a holy man.

To the Tibetans he is the 14th of his line. As a living lama he represents to them the centre that holds their cultural and national identity together. In other words he is a representation of Tibetans.
But soul of Dalai Lama is not borrowed clothes of any lama dead and gone but something that can bear the weight of all those lamas who had gone before him. Even if he chose to live a life differently it validates such a change. Soul is the essence of a living being and no matter how many reincarnations of changes he may undergo in a spiritual creation the soul doesn’t shift. Soul of Dalai Lama is constant.

Soul is this Power of One regardless of changes his body or spirit may experience.

benny

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Pen Portraits-34

FRIEDRICH EBERT (German) (1871  –  1925)
Statesman.

Ebert was the first President of Germany’s Weimar Republic, so called after the constitution adopted by the National Assembly of 1919 at Weimar, which lasted until the advent of Hitler in 1933. Trained as a saddler, Ebert succeeded Bebel as leader of the social Democrats in 1913. After the outbreak of the WWI he was instrumental in obtaining socialist support for the Kaiser’s government. He strongly opposed social revolution and the proclamation of the Republic, but on November 10, 1918 he was elected Co-chairman of the Council of People’s Representatives by the worker’s and soldier’s councils. On that day he also concluded the famous alliance with the High Command to preserve law and order and to fight Bolshevism. This alliance became the Weimar Republic’s cornerstone. In January 1919 he was elected president of Germany which he remained until 1925. The worker’s and soldier’s councils were defeated and all extremists coups drowned in blood.
In 1923 executive power was transferred by Ebert to the War Minister to cope with growing extremism on the Left and Right, vast currency inflation, French occupation of the Ruhr and separation in South and West. That the Weimar Republic survived was largely due to his merit while vitriolic attacks from the Right were his reward.

compiler:benny

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