Of course, all individuals also have names. It is inconceivable for anyone to go without a name. A baby is given a name soon after birth although the formal religious ceremony may come later.<\/p>\n
Thus a person recognises himself\/herself by the name given. Imagine if the name is removed from the person, what does the person think or feel? This situation is considered in the Hindu epic Advaita<\/em> as summarised below:<\/p>\n \u201cWho are you?<\/em><\/p>\n “I am ..<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNo, I am not asking your name, who are you?<\/em><\/p>\n “I am a person with a heart, bones, flesh..<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIs that all you are, only bones and flesh? Animals like cows and rats also have these features, so you are no different from a rat for example?<\/em><\/p>\n “Of course I am not a rat; I can think, I can talk to you …<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYes, a cow can also communicate with her calves, so are you similar to a cow?<\/em><\/p>\n “No, Sir, I have intelligence unlike a cow…<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYes, but cows and horses and other such animals also have intelligence, unlike those of people. So what is the difference?<\/em><\/p>\n “It is a difficult question. I think I am different because I have a soul unlike that of these creatures.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou keep saying I. Are you then a soul, a bodyless soul?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n These types of issues are considered at length and tentative conclusions drawn. I do not have the knowledge or expertise to deal with these issues in detail. What I do want to stress is the importance that names provide to objects, individuals. What difficulties arise if people are bereft of their names is briefly suggested.<\/p>\n ______________________________________________<\/p>\n Thus a person recognises himself\/herself by the name given. Imagine if the name is removed from the person, what does the person think or feel?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":70777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/em>Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"