Shiva (The Source of Life Skills)

Like to enjoy a modem classic that would change your outlook altogether?

This book is the most ideal a tool.

A culmination of stories related to Lord Shiva and his devotees. Shiva - The Source of Life Skills, through the analysis of its episodes, events and characters, sheds light on various skills that would be immensely useful for any common man, working community at various levels, students, general readers, teachers and trainers.

This work will inculcate basic qualities essential to transform you into a complete man within, apart from teaching you the philosophy of the ancient wisdom of Vedic times.

Upholding the cultural values which are the desideratum of our current education system. this also helps you streamline your goals in life.

This book is a 'must read" for any soul seeking eternal peace and stress release.

Having served the corporate sector in key positions for 28 years, KK Shanmukhan rendered his services a HOD, principal regional director and trainer to 4 leading B-schools for 14 years.

He is the author of 24 published works, his magnum opus being Training -Why and How (foreword by Mr. TKA Nair, IAS, former Principal Secretary to the PM and preface by Mr. TN seshan, IAS, former Chief Election Commissioner. He has also published more than 1000 articles in English and Malayalam in prominent dailies and periodicals, on education, art and culture, tourism and hospitality.

He has interviewed many great maestros of indian classical music and dances.

Sri. K.K. Shanmukhan has come out with his research into the true message and symbolism of the stories in the great Hindu epics. The survey of scriptural literature made by him in his book 'SHIVA- The Source of Life Skills' indicates his scholarship of and deep faith in the ancient lore and its message to the modern man. His conclusions are in the last chapter in which he laments the virtual moral bankruptcy of values of the present social order. Sri. Shanmukhan quite understandably, is disturbed by the falling standards in education and culture in society.

Sri. Shanmukhan also recalls the disillusionment of that great technological entrepreneur and philanthropist Sri. Azim Premji in his writing "Time to Unlearn".

"Whatever happens in our class rooms today will spread in the whole society tomorrow. That is why the roles and responsibilities and the social status of a teacher is far more important than any other person"

Those who are rightly alarmed by the inequities and injustices of the Indian society could not agree more. The lament of Sri Shanmukhan about the nation's predicament is serious enough to attract the attention of everyone who has the good of the nation at heart. The country is yet unprepared to meet the technological explosions that are imminent.

But we must also understand, and put in the proper background the causes for this phase of disillusionment in national life. A feudal social order has collapsed and the nation is grimly struggling to be reborn into a modern, egalitarian industrial social order. Such transformations are always painful and quite often violent as the lessons from other countries have taught us. The social consequences of the turmoil are deep and distressing. For instance, the 2010 UNDP Oxford study indicates, there are more poorest of the poor in eight states in India than in all the 23 African Nations put together; there are said to be 421 million of them in these eight states alone.

Then again, the developments of Science and Technology in the 21St Century will be stunning. The future needs skilled governance and a high degree of sensitivity to the importance of excellence in education. But Governments are yet to acquire this sense of urgency. This becomes all the more important in the years ahead. It will bring about a great divide between countries that are ahead in Science and Technology and those which are not. A scholar brings out a glimpse of the future spectacular exploits of science:

"As we peer even further in to the 21st Century,nanotechnology will

will enable us to rebuild and extend our bodies and create virtually

any product from mere information, resulting in remarkable gain in

prosperity. We will develop means to vastly expand our physical

and mental capabilities by directly interfacing our biological systems

with human created technology."

Today's demands on Government are enormous and extremely pressing. The aspirations of a great nation to break through and achieve its great inherent potential is held to ransom by an unimaginative officialdom which refuses to read the writing on the wall. Many policies of Governments are progressive and imaginative. But they fail on account of inefficient implementation. This unleashes a spate of cynicism. Cynicism is not a power of reconstruction but one of destruction. When citizens are cynical they tend to become ungovernable. This becomes a vicious circle. If a sizeable section of society looses faith in the justice of its government and its society it creates negative social critical- mass unleashing in turn a chain reaction

. Sri. Shanmukhan's invoking Lord Shiva as the source of life skills is, indeed, a metaphor to emphasise that without moral and spiritual foundations no society will have an enduring future.

**Contents and Sample Pages**