Few weeks back I met a Bala a fellow student at UC who was about to host a lecture on "Art of Living" and I knowingly or unknowingly for whatever reason got into an argument with him on all this "Art of Living" kind of stuff. Its has always been a debatable and no agreement kind of topic for me. Everytime I meet a person who goes to different classes like these (Good Lord, you have numerous of them in India and all over the world) I have just one sentence to say "We learn what We wanna Learn". It really thrills me that how people go to these "CLASSES" as I call them, and think that life would change. There would be enlightening and everything would just work out fine. I am unable to comprehend that what do we exactly gain out of listening to a person preaching what to do and what not because ultimately we do what we think is right according to our own value system and no one else's. Ultimately if we would do what we think is correct because we grew up thinking that it is right then what is the need to go spend time, energy and money on these classes.
All my thoughts about not supporting any of these classes got even stronger due to this once incident (its true not made up...trust me) that happened when I was in XI. I went on a vacation to Goa with my family (mom, dad, sis and my brother) to celebrate New Year along with another family friend of ours. Our tickets back from Goa to Bhopal were not confirmed (waiting list) despite of the fact that we made our reservations on the first day that reservations open (the 2 month timeline). We were the first 9 people on waiting list. Hoping that few seats would confirm we went ahead. To our surprise when we boarded the train at Madgaon it was empty and our seats were still not confirmed. We were perplexed, only to discover the reason why it happened the next day, when there a storm of people, storm literally means storm (about 500 or so) boarded the train at Ratnagiri "The famous India city for Alphanso". All these people that is men, women, kids (under 10), teens, mid 2os etc. etc. were at a camp called "SAHAJYOG" by Nirmala Mataji (it's her picture in the post). Well, at that point of time I thought, damn, so many people follow her, there must be something really good about her. I thought these people must be really good at heart even if not naturally but because they have just heard discourses teaching them to be one. But as I expected and would have happened anyways none of these people showed any respect towards other human beings, leave us aside not even the one who were with them at the camp. The moment they got on to the train there was immense fighting for available seats, several of these people also did not have confirmed seats just like us. Since we were already on the train and were left with almost another 12 hours of journey (Goa to Bhopal is exact 24 hrs by train), we had no choice but to sit near the area close to the taps in train (people who have travelled on waiting list know what I am talking about). To be frank we were not expecting any kind of help for seating from these people, just some consideration of not sprinkling water on us as most people do after they wash their hands.
Most of these travellers were frustrated I don't know for what reasons and there was this guy (mid 30s) who was constantly talking about the preachings they had just heard with other people from the camp. He decides to go to the bathroom right about the time we were having lunch and comes out. I still remember very clearly my dad requesting him to not sprinkle the water on us and the food after he washed his hand and the next thing you know is he knowingly does it and said he did not see we were eating nor did he hear dad requesting him not to do so. The next thing I heard was "Why the hell are you guys here in the first place, you don't belong here and that we shouldn't have boarded the train." He was almost ready to fight, thank god my dad chose to stop there itself. Dad who had not heard any kind of preaching knew very well what to do and this guy who not only heard the supposedly "GOOD THOUGHTS" from a learned woman, but was also preaching them himself in the train did not know what is wrong.
Well the whole thing got imprinted on my brain and I still remember it after 9 years. Ultimately he could not learn the barest good he should have from any of those discourses, then what the use? Any person cant adopt a value unless he or she has thought about it from within. No person in this world except your parents can teach you how you should be. Once we are past the stage of learning from parents we only learn what we want to learn. No matter how hard we try to adopt the values they don't come into us unless we introspect, unless we think they are right!
I know there might be many many people who would not agree! I don't wish to make anyone agree anyway. But, I surely want people who read the blog to ask a question to themselves "IS IT OF USE? DID I CHANGE? IF I DID, WHAT CAUSED THOSE CHANGES?"
All my thoughts about not supporting any of these classes got even stronger due to this once incident (its true not made up...trust me) that happened when I was in XI. I went on a vacation to Goa with my family (mom, dad, sis and my brother) to celebrate New Year along with another family friend of ours. Our tickets back from Goa to Bhopal were not confirmed (waiting list) despite of the fact that we made our reservations on the first day that reservations open (the 2 month timeline). We were the first 9 people on waiting list. Hoping that few seats would confirm we went ahead. To our surprise when we boarded the train at Madgaon it was empty and our seats were still not confirmed. We were perplexed, only to discover the reason why it happened the next day, when there a storm of people, storm literally means storm (about 500 or so) boarded the train at Ratnagiri "The famous India city for Alphanso". All these people that is men, women, kids (under 10), teens, mid 2os etc. etc. were at a camp called "SAHAJYOG" by Nirmala Mataji (it's her picture in the post). Well, at that point of time I thought, damn, so many people follow her, there must be something really good about her. I thought these people must be really good at heart even if not naturally but because they have just heard discourses teaching them to be one. But as I expected and would have happened anyways none of these people showed any respect towards other human beings, leave us aside not even the one who were with them at the camp. The moment they got on to the train there was immense fighting for available seats, several of these people also did not have confirmed seats just like us. Since we were already on the train and were left with almost another 12 hours of journey (Goa to Bhopal is exact 24 hrs by train), we had no choice but to sit near the area close to the taps in train (people who have travelled on waiting list know what I am talking about). To be frank we were not expecting any kind of help for seating from these people, just some consideration of not sprinkling water on us as most people do after they wash their hands.
Most of these travellers were frustrated I don't know for what reasons and there was this guy (mid 30s) who was constantly talking about the preachings they had just heard with other people from the camp. He decides to go to the bathroom right about the time we were having lunch and comes out. I still remember very clearly my dad requesting him to not sprinkle the water on us and the food after he washed his hand and the next thing you know is he knowingly does it and said he did not see we were eating nor did he hear dad requesting him not to do so. The next thing I heard was "Why the hell are you guys here in the first place, you don't belong here and that we shouldn't have boarded the train." He was almost ready to fight, thank god my dad chose to stop there itself. Dad who had not heard any kind of preaching knew very well what to do and this guy who not only heard the supposedly "GOOD THOUGHTS" from a learned woman, but was also preaching them himself in the train did not know what is wrong.
Well the whole thing got imprinted on my brain and I still remember it after 9 years. Ultimately he could not learn the barest good he should have from any of those discourses, then what the use? Any person cant adopt a value unless he or she has thought about it from within. No person in this world except your parents can teach you how you should be. Once we are past the stage of learning from parents we only learn what we want to learn. No matter how hard we try to adopt the values they don't come into us unless we introspect, unless we think they are right!
I know there might be many many people who would not agree! I don't wish to make anyone agree anyway. But, I surely want people who read the blog to ask a question to themselves "IS IT OF USE? DID I CHANGE? IF I DID, WHAT CAUSED THOSE CHANGES?"
2 comments:
disagree in parts... lets book fifth-third arena and fight it out... :P
If people had it in the first place, they wouldn't look for someone to preach it for them.
As they say "You can take a horse to the river. But you can never make it drink".
No matter what, a person cannot be TAUGHT manners. He's got it or he ain't. Similarly, no point in trying to convince people that all these classes are useless. If they are looking for an authority to teach them how to live, well, they wouldn't listen to anything else, would they?
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