DP Daily Prompt: Brain Wave

Sir Muhammad Iqbal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel prize for literature. It is the first Nobel prize won by Asia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/daily-prompt-brainwave/

One day I started thinking of doing something to keep me busy. I surfed the internet and found out, Iqbal Academy was offering online courses on the poet and philosopher Iqbal. I was very happy. I thought it was a very good opportunity for me.

It would help me to know about the poet.  You see when I was a student in college, there was nothing about him in our course of studies.  I knew a few lines of one of his poems. They were awesome. I thought I’d be able to learn more about him.

I jumped at the opportunity and registered for the course. It was in 2011.  I am still doing it and enjoying it. I am trying hard to go back  and study as I used to. It is a very good course. It covers subjects like religion,philosophy. poetry, prose . We’ve also studied about Rumi , Goethe the German poet, Shakespeare and many others.

Studying about Iqbal has opened other doors,which I never would have tried.  I started blogging, translating, the work of  another great poet. Tagore. I knew a few things about him, now I know a lot more.   I am never bored,I always have something to do.

I am also trying to write something for ,SPEAKEASY. My participation in SPEAKEASY is awesome. I am getting to know a lot of good and gifted writers.

I now feel joining the online course was the best idea for me.  I came into contact with bright and intelligent people. I am enjoying interacting with a lot of interesting and friendly people. I am giving my brain enough work out to prevent it from getting rusty.

DP Daily Prompt:Fifteen Minutes

I will talk about world peace:

History tells us no one country can rule forever. They are victors today and vanquished tomorrow. These are  the facts of life. We have read about the rise and fall of Empires,such as Mughal,Ottoman,Roman,British and the list goes on.

Our leaders are trying to find solutions to the problems that beset our planet, but so far it’s only a dream and nothing else. If each of us can set aside our selfish motives and work towards a common goal of a peaceful world, we can achieve it. When we think of world peace we forget that our contribution is necessary, but we have used our mouths and not our souls. We can begin by thinking about how are we treating our brothers, neighbors – the answer lies within us.

Philosophers and poets – past and present have written volumes on how we should treat each other. We must ask ourselves, “what is world peace?”.  Some think it is the resolution of conflict, others think the absence of hunger and poverty.  I believe it is a combination of wrongs that must be righted –  if we can work towards social justice in our corner of the world, we can make peace happen in our world.

I am a student of an online course offered by the Iqbal Academy. The course discusses the writings of Iqbal, an Indian philosopher and poet.  Although he did not call himself a poet, he wrote volumes of poetry.  His aim was to have a place on earth,which he called Marghdeen, where the inhabitants would live in peace. There would be no army, no government, no beggars or thieves – it would be an egalitarian world where no conflict was bred from the inherent imbalances of a stratified society.

Here is the beauty of this place: no army means no fighting. No government eliminates the difference of opinion of a handful of people who are at liberty to decide  fate of the citizens,whether they liked it or not.There is no ill-feeling  , where the citizens can live in peace.His ideas if adopted today will help us to know  the direction we must take to achieve our goal.

If we can remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  If we live in harmony with each other,we can have world peace. There will be no reason to build nuclear arms to use against each other.Think of it this way,there are countries who possess them and if they  use these weapons against each other,there will be no world left to have peace.

The World Peace monument in a pond next to a statue of the Buddha on a lotus in Swayambhunath temple site, Kathmandu, Nepal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thank you for listening.

DP Daily Prompt: Share The Love Post by Ranu

Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), a notable Muslim philosopher, poet and scholar from India (then British India) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My online journey began in November 2011. I did not start blogging then,I registered for a course to study about the great poet and Philospher, Sir Allama Mohammad Iqbal. This course is offered by Iqbal Academy.The course facilitator is ,Khurram Ali Shafique. Because I showed a lot of interest about the great poet and Philosopher,I was asked if I was interested to register for the course offered by the academy. I was thrilled and immediately indicated I would be glad to study about Iqbal.Mr Shafique registered me at once, thus began my online journey. A few months later,Robert a course participant started a blog, I read it and wanted to know from Mr. Shafique,if I could start one of my own. He encouraged me and thought it would be a good idea.

I was not familiar how to get started.My daughter,Selina is a computer programmer. She did some research and found WordPress to be the best of the ones she read about. I did not know much about blogging,I roamed around and read the posts of different bloggers.The ones I picked were the ones written by other participants who were registered for the same course.Every now and then I would yell out,’Selina , can you help me?’

I must say I am somewhat comfortable writing the posts. I am grateful to Mr. Shafique, despite his busy schedule, he takes time to read my blogs and leaves a comment. Mr. Akhtar Wasim Dar is another person who has from time to time given me advice about my posts and is always very generous when he writes his comments. He gave me the idea of translating, Rabindranath Tagore’s poems. He takes his time, reads them and leaves amazing comments. Robert is another course participant who helps me immensely. He never fails to read all my posts and types his wonderful comments. I could not just name one person,all these wonderful people are behind my blogging. I am glad I got this opportunity to do something I dearly love. I get the privilege of reading some very amazing posts.