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(Case. 1) The Prophet

And the priestess spoke again and said: "Speak to us of Reason and Passion."

And he answered saying: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite As emotional beings, we human beings are subject to various kinds of hunger and cravings, which in more sophisticated language we call needs, dreams or desires. They are said to be the products of our passionate nature. Often these needs stem from no rhyme or reason. But then there is also this other part of us, which maybe some of us call the voice and still some of the rest of us call the conscience, which questions these cravings: their origin, their utility, their necessity, and whether we really need them. That is called our reasoning ability. Being one of the human race, I am no exception. Since I opened my eyes to the world, there always have been phases where I would want to do something but I myself refute it by asking questions. I want to eat a chocolate. But is it good for my teeth and stomach? I want to go to the party. But should I disregard my fathers health because of that? I want to go and get drenched in the rain. But wont I fall sick on getting wet?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through

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its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. As a child I wanted to be a dancer, because dance made me feel good, made me feel alive again. Passion makes you feel alive. It is the force which makes you live life. But as I grew older I started asking, Is that something I want to go on doing for the rest of my life? If I do, will it feed me? After all dancing alone cant feed me. I need food, clothes and shelter to live. For that I need money. I need to study hard for that and get a good job. Thus comes in reason, to give a more defining direction to my life. Now, if I would have followed my impulses and kept on dancing as and when I felt like it, my whole life would have been in shambles. Not to mention about the fact that I would not have a proper job, even my social life and my family life would have been beyond repair. I love my parents, but if I followed my own wish without sparing a thought for them, I would not have been able to care for them. Or for that matter my younger brother and sister, they always look up to me for guidance. If I appeared to them as willful, they would become willful too. Even if somehow, with all these drawbacks I could become successful in my life, there is no guarantee that they would become successful too. On the other hand, if I were to delve on reason alone all through my life, I would have never reached anywhere. As a student I should revise my lessons everyday. But if I remain confined to my room throughout the day, then I would become a very dull person. As the saying goes all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. This would inhibit my growth as a well-rounded person who is able to function properly in a society. I still do dance whenever I get the time or feel the inclination. And after each dance I feel refreshed. I still need my passion for dance to keep me interested in life and keep on going. And reason helps me in having a goal, and not drift about aimlessly.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both. The Prophets comparing reason and passion as two house guests is very apt. They are two loved guests meaning we cannot do without either. If we just go on doing things out of sheer impulse, our reasoning power would soon desert us and at moments of crisis when it would be needed most to have an analytical mind, we would not know how to make a proper judgment. Again, if we go on trying to reason out each and every action that we take or face, we would soon not know the difference between a light-hearted joke of a friend or the cruel barbs of an enemy. Life would become dull. Sometimes, trying to figure out the purpose of each and everything makes the bigger picture seem even more confusing.

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Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows --- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason." And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, --- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion." And since you are a breath In God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion. The manifestation of God is the supreme belief. The advice on reason and passion is the Prophets own advice in this poem. His followers would always look up to him for his advice, but they also know that he is mortal. Therefore, there might be a few who would not be as convinced as to soundness of the advice. For this reason, the Prophet offers credibility of his words by giving the example that the changes in nature are Gods own movements with respect to his reason and passion. He says that when nature is calm and peaceful, God is resting in reason and when the storm comes God is moving in passion. The Prophet advices that since God himself uses reason and passion in his actions, as his children we should also follow his example and take refuge of our reasoning power and passionate nature as and when needed. Now, what would I do, if I were the Prophet? Out there, thousands of faces will be turned up towards me waiting in anticipation, to hear some words of wisdom from me. Ill have to speak because its almost like a sacred duty, a duty binding on me, to say a few words. Even if those words may not be profound, they might not mean anything, my followers will absorb them in the manner a thirsty person would drink up till the last drop of water. Like any of us, a leader is an ordinary man. What sets him apart is that he has to balance his reasoning and passion to a greater degree of accuracy than his followers. His wish to lead a normal family life often clashes with his responsibility towards his followers. Sometimes he has to even sacrifice his dreams for the greater good. I had analyzed the biography of JRD Tata for my first term paper. While going through the biography I came to know that JRD Tata was passionate about flying airplanes. He got his licenses and every other document necessary to become a full-fledged commercial pilot. But when his father called him back to take over the Tata group of companies, he gave up his dreams without complaining and instead channelized his passion in another

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direction. He not only took Tatas to even greater heights, he also worked to set up establishments for the social upliftment of India. As a mortal being, the Prophet sensed that there might be people who would be a bit skeptical about his words. To counter that, he gives examples of God acting as his reason and passion directs Him to. Here also, we can bring upon JRD Tatas example. According to Tata, the crux of any successful labor policy lay in making workers feel wanted. One of the inherent drawbacks of modern industry with its large and concentrated labor forces was that each man felt that instead of being a valued member of a friendly and human organization, he was a mere cog in a soulless machine. Because of this, a worker's attitude towards management becomes one of indifference, mistrust and coldness often tinged with hostility. He is easily led to feeling himself the victim of callous and unfair treatment and little is needed to make him look upon his employers as his enemies and break out into open conflict.' Tata Steel became one of the earliest companies in India to have a dedicated human resources department. On expressing surprise that the company had functioned for so long without one, Tata commented: If our operations required the employment of, say, 30,000 machine tools, we would undoubtedly have a special staff or department to look after them, to keep them in repair, replace them when necessary, maintain their efficiency, protect them from damage, etc. But when employing 30,000 human beings each with a mind and soul of his own, we seem to have assumed that they would look after themselves and that there was no need for a separate organization to deal with the human problems involved.