I have a friend of mine who used to study in my collage and was one year senior to me. Before he used to be very arrogant, selfish, aloof, short tempered, and name any vices and you could find in him.
During his final years in collage, because of some personal reasons, he came across a ‘Baba’, and then there was magical change in his entire personality. Now he was soft spoken, caring, loving, talking to everyone, respecting others and things like that. The person, who used to open his eyes at 12 O’clock afternoon, now wakes up 4 O’clock morning!! I have never seen such dramatic personality change in any person till date.
So far so good. This guy is now traveling India, spreading message of love and peace. He is spreading his Guru’s divine message to all the human being he come across. To be honest, I really appreciate these changes of him, but sometimes few points really itch into my brain and I am forced to think upon them.
This guy’s father is a Doc, and I think he is very rich. For his living and traveling, I don’t think that he is spending from his pocket, because he simply doesn't do anything to earn money. Either his father must be giving him financial support, or his ashram cult must be bearing his charges. Whatever it is, the bottom line is that he is not doing anything to sustain his life. What if his father stops supporting him? What if his ashram closes, and then they stop bearing his expenses? Will he still be able to spread the message of love and peace, travel here and there and not earning any money??
To be practical, it is not possible. I don’t predict that there would be any reversal behavioral changes in him because of this, but at least he won’t be able to travel idly on other’s expenses! He would have to spend a great amount of his time for earning money. And even after that if he can save time and energy to spread the message of love and peace, then I must bow to him.
I really don’t have any problem with why he doesn’t do anything and traveling. There are many people in this world, who don’t do anything at all. I just wonder, those who are really very poor, orphans, small kids begging in railway platforms, stealing trinkets, doing boot polish to earn a piece of bread, had they been given a chance like this, couldn’t they become a spiritual prophet?? Then why don’t these kids become spirituals by simply joining a cult or society?? …………………………….Isn’t it because there is no one to ‘sponsor’ their spirituality??!
To conclude, those who belong to some cult or ashram, they are really doing noble work. Spreading message of peace and serving people. It is appreciated. But they will be respected even more if they don’t depend upon donations of devotees, and start earning their own bread. A real spiritual is the one who lives in the real world, and remembers the divine lord even for once, not the one who lives upon others bread and chanting the name of lord million times a day………!
1 comment:
This post reminds me of this chapter in our Hindi book, called "Priyatam" (in which Naarad Muni asks Lord about His greatest devotee and not having heard his name, he seeks to understand why it is that the peasant got to hold such an important place in His heart). It is very intriguing to note that spirituality gets to be the privilege of the rich and then we end up talking about trying to eliminate the caste system. Caste system does not exist in it native form anymore. To begin with, castes had to do with the occupation and the opulence of a person. The demarcations of different castes have almost been expunged but as before, that between the rich and the poor remain and even today, the rich get to be the "devotees".
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