Arrears can be of any description -- arrears of work, duty, or uncollected outstanding of money. People in business sometimes come to a standstill. Money dries up or the market deserts. One contemplates closing the operations. It can be of several types. One type is because of accumulated arrears. Here we come to a vicious cycle. We know if the arrears are fully collected, the business will be viable. Again, we know unless the business is viable and is running, those arrears cannot be collected. At such points, one finds his prayers at a dead end, evoking no response.

To understand the reality of an open mind, it will be helpful to know in real terms what a closed mind is. It is best understood by knowing the process of opinion formation. Mother says opinions look like needles in the subtle plane. Obviously opinion is ours, not necessarily the fact of the situation. There is a report about a theft. It comes to us. As we hear of it, our past experience receives the facts - assuming they are correct facts - and arrives at a conclusion. That becomes our opinion.

The tendency to overdoing is present in all walks of life. Especially man tends to over-exercise himself in the pursuit of a virtue.  Nature sets its face against excesses of any type. In innocuous things, excesses lead to fads. In linguistic zeal, excesses create clichés, platitudes or forms without content. In short, they organise superstition in the name of culture, religion, values, etc. Thiruvalluvar warns against such a tendency drawing a metaphor of peacock feathers.

Different centuries acquire different distinctions. Empires were built in a century by the various European powers. Expeditions were undertaken in quick succession as if they were all planned together. Inventions were made in different fields almost simultaneously, as if the different discoverers worked together. The Industrial Revolution sprouted and spread all over. Religious Reformation too had its share. What is in store for the twenty-first century? If one century built empires, another century dissolved colonies.

Secrets are the secrets of success. Some people usually keep them. They become successful in life and conscience keepers of friends. Others usually do not keep secrets. They are the human vehicles of Word of Mouth, socially known as gossip. It has a powerful role to play in the society. The Mahabharata gives a subtle dimension to this social phenomenon, making it a universal phenomenon. It is the capacity to know the secrets of other without anyone telling them. Karna's one burning desire was to know his mother.

Time never stops. It is relentless. Its march is called the progress of civilisation. Century after century, decade after decade, progress continues. Thus the mere existence of Man becomes history. His mere existence is now denoted as pre-historic period. As existence matures into history, history ripens into culture. Man was physical, selfish. Now he is mental and aims at being selfless. Man does not become selfless on his own.

The days of freedom fight had in the atmosphere idealism of all types. Congress workers took after the Mahatma, gave up the shirt and took to an angavastram. Some merely used a towel. Stalwarts gave up a lucrative practice at the bar to boycott the British courts. Dress was simple at all levels; even students in a great majority adorned the pure khadi. To espouse a cause means to lose one's job. Every district boasted of a cluster of young men who ran Gandhi Ashram, schools for Harijan children, courted intercaste marriage, and resigned government jobs.

If the builders of the nation are to be listed, Viswesvaraiah will figure in any list, however short-listed it is. He was an eminent administrator who became an eminent Indian. By training, he was a civil engineer. By temperament, he was a nation builder. His forte was to spot out enterprising young men and offer them a viable suggestion of entrepreneurship. His photograph is ubiquitous in the state of Karnataka. Someone stayed in an old fashioned hotel in Bangalore. He saw the photograph of M. Viswesvaraiah over the reception counter. He asked why it was there.

In a democratic country, the legislature is the supreme institution. Still, it is placed under the ever-vigilant scrutiny of the judiciary. The Parliament is the legislature. It can only legislate but it cannot execute. The administration executes. Hence, it is the Executive. People elect the legislature but in day-to-day work, they come into constant contact with the Executive, not the judiciary or the legislature. An efficient, incorruptible administration enhances the nation's ease of existence and her prestige abroad.