A passage is given with five questions following it. Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives.
The saddest part of life lies not in the act of dying, but in failing to truly live while we are alive. Too many of us play small with our lives, never letting the fullness of our humanity see the light of day. I’ve learned that what really counts in life, in the end, is not how many toys we have collected or how much money we’ve accumulated, but how many of our talents we have liberated and used for a purpose that adds value to this world. What truly matters most are the lives we have touched and the legacy that we have left. Tolstoy put it so well when he wrote: “We live for ourselves only when we live for others.” It took me forty years to discover this simple point of wisdom. Forty long years to discover that success cannot really be pursued. Success ensues and flows into your life as the unintended yet inevitable byproduct of a life spent enriching the lives of other people. When you shift your daily focus from a compulsion to survive towards a lifelong commitment to serve, your existence cannot help but explode into success. I still can’t believe that I had to wait until the “half-time” of my life to figure out that true fulfillment as a human being comes not from achieving those grand gestures that put us on the front pages of the newspapers and business magazines, but instead from those basic and incremental acts of decency that each one of us has the privilege to practice each and every day if we simply make the choice to do so.
Mother Teresa, a great leader of human hearts if ever there was one, said it best: “There are no great acts, only small acts done with great love.” I learned this the hard way in my life. Until recently, I had been so busy striving, I had missed out on living. I was so busy chasing life’s big pleasures that I had missed out on the little ones, those micro joys that weave themselves in and out of our lives on a daily basis but often go unnoticed. My days were overscheduled, my mind was overworked and my spirit was underfed.
SSC CGL 201811)According to the passage, what does ''failing to truly live while we are alive means.''?
Never letting the fullness of our humanity see the light of day.
SSC CGL 201812)Suggest a suitable title for the passage?
Living truly
SSC CGL 201813)According to the passage, what took Tolstoy forty years to discover?
That we live for ourselves only when we live for others.
SSC CGL 201814)What according to the passage is success?
Success is an unintended yet inevitable byproduct of a life spent enriching the lives of others..
SSC CGL 201815)According to the passage, what did Mother Teresa learned the hard way in her life?
That there are no great acts, only small acts are done with great love.
A passage is given with five questions following it. Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives.
Teaching about compassion and empathy in schools can help deal with problems of climate change and environmental degradation,” says Barbara Maas, secretary, Standing Committee for Environment and Conservation, International Buddhist Confederation (IBC). She was in New Delhi to participate in the IBC’s governing council meeting, December 10-11, 2017. “We started an awareness campaign in the year 2005-2006 with H H The Dalai Lama when we learnt that tiger skins were being traded in China and Tibet. At that time, I was not a Buddhist; I wrote to the Dalai Lama asking him to say that ‘this is harmful’ and he wrote back to say, “We will stop this.” He used very strong words during the Kalachakra in 2006, when he said, ‘If he sees people wearing fur and skins, he doesn’t feel like living. ‘This sent huge shock waves in the Himalayan community. Within six months, in Lhasa, people ripped the fur trim of their tubba, the traditional Tibetan dress.
The messenger was ideal and the audience was receptive,” says Maas who is a conservationist. She has studied the battered fox’s behavioral ecology in Serengeti, Africa. She heads the endangered species conservation at the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) International Foundation for Nature, Berlin. “I met Samdhong Rinpoche, The Karmapa, HH the Dalai Lama and Geshe Lhakdor and I thought, if by being a Buddhist, you become like this, I am going for it, “says Maas, who led the IBC initiative for including the Buddhist perspective to the global discourse on climate change by presenting the statement, ‘The Time to Act is Now: a Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change,’ at COP21 in Paris.
“It was for the first time in the history of Buddhism that leaders of different sanghas came together to take a stand on anything! The statement lists a couple of important things: the first is that we amass things that we don’t need; there is overpopulation; we need to live with contentment and deal with each other and the environment with love and compassion,” elaborates Maas. She is an ardent advocate of a vegan diet because “consuming meat and milk globally contributes more to climate change than all "transport in the world.”
Turning vegetarian or vegan usually requires complete change of perspective before one gives up eating their favorite food. What are the Buddhist ways to bring about this kind of change at the individual level? “To change our behavior, Buddhism is an ideal vehicle; it made me a more contented person,” says Maas, who grew up in Germany, as a sausage chomping, meat-loving individual. She says, “If I can change, so can anybody”.
SSC CGL 201816)According to the passage, how can studying compassion and empathy in schools help?
It can help deal with problems of climate change and environmental degradation.
SSC CGL 201817)Why is Ms. Barbara an ardent follower of vegan diet?
She believes that “consuming meat and milk contributes more to climate change than all transport in the world”.
SSC CGL 201818)What did HH Dalai Lama said to his followers which came as a blow to them?
He said that if he sees people wearing fur and skins, he doesn’t feel like living.
SSC CGL 201819)According to the passage, what do you infer from ''The messenger was ideal and the audience was receptive''?
It means that HH Dalai Lama was a perfect choice of messenger for the message to be received by the audience.
SSC CGL 201820)Why did Ms. Barbara Mass say “If I can change, so can anybody”?
She grew up eating non vegetarian but turned vegan.