Celebrating Respect - Aarika Banka

“Respect everything and everyone” that’s what all your parents taught us, haven’t they? But have you ever actually thought about it? Respect is a significant value in our lives that we often forget about. There are so many creatures on our incredible earth.

Respect means accepting somebody for who they are, even though you don’t agree with them or are different. They’re all organisms that we don’t know how important they are.

An ant? Doesn’t matter if you kill it. It is useless. Killing a few ants won’t do any harm. There are so many things that we need to learn to respect, the decisions of people, the lives of people and organisms and endless things.

Respect is something that we all deserve. It is not just others we need to learn to respect. Sometimes, people think they are less than others. They become “insecure” and have low self-respect. We need to know to respect ourselves and our lives. It is not just others.

Respecting friends, family, strangers, animals, biotic things, abiotic things, ourselves, our lives, and others’ lives bring us back to the time our parents were teaching us the life value “Respect everything and everyone”. Now I can understand what they meant at that time. 

Aarika Banka
VIII D 
Gyanshree School 

Science and it's journey- Rishona Chopra

We all believe in science and its established facts. Did you know that the knowledge science has was found long back in the era when people could actually connect to god!

Here are some well-known, established scientific facts compared to the spiritual knowledge found in the 1800s.

1. The non-existence of absolute rest. This is a well-understood consequence of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: the final temperature of zero Kelvin is impossible to reach. In other words, nothing remains at rest, and motion defines all things:

Divine and all-encompassing - Wisdom hath ordained that motion be an inseparable concomitant of existence, whether inherently or accidentally, spiritually or materially. – Abdu'l Baha, Tablet of the Universe, provisional translation.

2. The non-existence of a void. Current quantum field theory stipulates no empty space. Scientists now know that freedom is not open; it is a field from which particles pop in and out of existence. Actually, a vacuum can never reach absolute zero energy, which means no void can possibly exist:

..a void is impossible and inconceivable. – Ibid.

3. A non-physical continuum mediates the propagation of electromagnetic waves. Scientists call this intangible reality the quantum field, while the Baha’i teachings call it the ether:

Even the ether, the forces of which are said in natural philosophy to be heat, light, electricity and magnetism, is an intelligible and not a sensible reality. – Abdu'l Baha, Some Answered Questions, newly revised edition, pp. 93-94.

4. This continuum gives rise to both matter and electromagnetism. Science now understands that the “solid objects” we think of as real and the electromagnetic fields we can measure have no actual existence. The Baha’i teachings agree:

… the substance and primary matter of contingent beings is the ethereal power, which is invisible and only known through its effects, such as electricity, heat, and light — these are vibrations of that power, and this is established and proven in natural philosophy and is known as the ethereal substance. – Abdu'l Baha from a tablet of , provisional translation by Keven Brown.

5. Gravity drives stellar formation. We now understand that the force of gravity, long thought of as simply a force of attraction, actually plays a significant role in the creation of the universe itself:

By the operation of this attractive force those holy and resplendent suns, with their luminous worlds, satellites and planets, circling and orbiting in their heavens, at once exerted attraction and were subject to it, induced motion and were themselves moved, began orbiting and set into orbit other bodies, shone forth and caused others to shine. – Abdu'l Baha, Tablet of the Universe, provisional translation.

6. The universe originated from a singularity. Because of the cosmic microwave background in space and because the universe continues to expand, most scientists now believe that a single body—a singularity—once contained all mass, energy, and spacetime. Compressed to an infinitely dense point, that initial singularity gave birth to our universe:

When He purposed to call the new creation into being, He sent forth the Manifest and Luminous Point from the horizon of His Will … – Abdu'l Baha

References:
- Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 101.
- Abdu’l-Baha
- Wikipedia

Rishona Chopra
Grade VI
Gyanshree School

Facts On Vegetables - Vani Pandey

 Don't like vegetables? Know the facts.

When your mother says there is something delicious to eat for dinner and then sits down to eat, you often find yourself eating a vegetable salad or curry with vegetables you don't like. You always think that junk food is so tastier than vegies that mom makes. But have you ever wondered why your mother tells you not to eat junk food? Instead, she tells you to eat fresh vegetables? 

Why is it important to eat vegetables?

Vegetables are a great source of many vitamins and minerals, including potassium, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C. Diets rich in potassium may help to maintain healthy blood pressure. They also contain a lot of fibres. They are low-calorie and low-fat.

We should eat vegetables regularly to lower our risk of type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure, and cancer by adding them to our diet. Do you know that whether the vegetables are fresh, frozen, canned, or dried, they are nutritious? 

Apart from eating, here are fun facts about vegetables.

• You can temporarily dye your hair with beetroot.
• Mushrooms have their own immune system.
• Eating a massive amount of carrots can indeed make the yellowish body orange.
• The city Chicago is named after garlic as 'Chicagaoua' is an Indian word for wild garlic.
• Pumpkin first appeared in the 17th century when the Cinderella tale was written.

Vani Pandey
VIII C
Gyanshree School