You know recently I was chatting to a very dear old friend of mine and while doing that, often I would start whining about my boring life or how I can’t find peace with myself (while having a beer and ordering 2 pizzas on a Friday night)…..
She being the insightful wise bird that she is had some very interesting ,simple yet useful takes on my dilemmas and I suddenly I realized why all these gurus and god-men ,you know the likes of osho and aasaram bapu are so liked and revered. The way I see it is that we as a people are still living under the raaj (not british but something which we have made up in our heads), maybe not physically or democratically but spiritually yes. Everyone has an inherent desire to be led, to be shown a path. We as Indians are still better off, as we have volumes of stories and spiritual texts to explain and provide peace to our ever wandering minds, what with the super cool self-help book bhagvad gita which not only gives you everything you need to manage urself but does that while telling you ghost and god stories ( oh man only if penguin were around at that time, this would have been such a bestseller).I mean imagine this, the seven habits of highly effective people but mixed with frodo’s quest to return the ring to helm’s deep.
Or let’s talk about Ramayana, not only does it kick LOTR’S ass in terms of content, drama, action and detail of storyline but does that while showing you the ideal behavior for any relation you can imagine. Not only that it even tells you what not to do (kakaeyi) or how not to get carried away (ravan while working as the ideal brother) by introduction of villains and vamps.
Rama: ideal son, husband,f riend
Lakshmana: ideal devar, brother
Sita: Ideal Wife
I mean there are so many examples abound in that text, that clearly tells you that it was written by our clever ancestors to make sure that the path was clear for us.
Coming back to our original discussion, in today’s terrorism infested, new morality definitions, neo- noir caricature of a world, some of our old values fall short of telling us exactly what to do and bingo there come in the self-help gurus, the babas and the like. I mean what I get from all of this is these people are very clever managers without an M.B.A degree and as long as we remain humans we will need them and they will survive. New ones might appear and old ones might go, but there will be always someone exploiting the very basic Freudian tendencies, the desire to be led.
She being the insightful wise bird that she is had some very interesting ,simple yet useful takes on my dilemmas and I suddenly I realized why all these gurus and god-men ,you know the likes of osho and aasaram bapu are so liked and revered. The way I see it is that we as a people are still living under the raaj (not british but something which we have made up in our heads), maybe not physically or democratically but spiritually yes. Everyone has an inherent desire to be led, to be shown a path. We as Indians are still better off, as we have volumes of stories and spiritual texts to explain and provide peace to our ever wandering minds, what with the super cool self-help book bhagvad gita which not only gives you everything you need to manage urself but does that while telling you ghost and god stories ( oh man only if penguin were around at that time, this would have been such a bestseller).I mean imagine this, the seven habits of highly effective people but mixed with frodo’s quest to return the ring to helm’s deep.
Or let’s talk about Ramayana, not only does it kick LOTR’S ass in terms of content, drama, action and detail of storyline but does that while showing you the ideal behavior for any relation you can imagine. Not only that it even tells you what not to do (kakaeyi) or how not to get carried away (ravan while working as the ideal brother) by introduction of villains and vamps.
Rama: ideal son, husband,f riend
Lakshmana: ideal devar, brother
Sita: Ideal Wife
I mean there are so many examples abound in that text, that clearly tells you that it was written by our clever ancestors to make sure that the path was clear for us.
Coming back to our original discussion, in today’s terrorism infested, new morality definitions, neo- noir caricature of a world, some of our old values fall short of telling us exactly what to do and bingo there come in the self-help gurus, the babas and the like. I mean what I get from all of this is these people are very clever managers without an M.B.A degree and as long as we remain humans we will need them and they will survive. New ones might appear and old ones might go, but there will be always someone exploiting the very basic Freudian tendencies, the desire to be led.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with it, in following a way of life which you like but when people go overboard that’s when the monkey starts clapping. This could all be seen as a subset of basic things, ok wait a minute I think I can explain this better…
It begins with people idolizing someone which is totally fine, moves on to people who are successful writing self help books (although the only person they help is the writer and maybe the publishers),next comes to gurus(who if they don’t take it too far are fine by me),this sets the stage for cults which are basically dictatorships with the members so doped up that they don’t realize that they are hooked and finally when new religions spring up out of the blue ,that’s the time the crazy can is popped open and you realize ,ok now they are going a little bit overboard. My suggestion it’s fine to listen to people and imbibe their good values, and move on, but when you start wearing only Bermudas and floral print shirts because your new religion demands so…I think you should rethink you options. How great, by the last line I myself became a preacher telling you what to do, damn you freudo!
Have taken an oath to manage a new post every single day, let’s see how long do I stick this one out.
Quote to go please:
“History does repeat itself but remakes are often at a multimillion dollar budget”
Lalit
“History does repeat itself but remakes are often at a multimillion dollar budget”
Lalit
1 comments:
23 September 2008 at 8:29 am
do i need to repeat myself, awesum, luv d subtle humor u introduce, cums naturally to u.....
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