Yeah! It is interesting to talk about the 'freebies' one gets on the path of enlightenment. There is only one hitch - you cannot claim any of the credit either to knowledge or to the intelligence of the piece of writing, or to the style of language or anything. Yet it is yours.
Now there is another aspect. That of remarkable coincidences. On the route to partial enlightenment one is often struck with remarkable coincidences that can leave one dumbfounded. These coincidences can make you conclude that a thought of yours, or again a particular action of yours caused a cloudburst in Bangalore resulting in some tragic deaths and so on. This can turn out to be scary for you tend to assume responsibility for all sorts of tragedies and human suffering. Then again, like it happened to me today, I wanted the telephone number of a former colleague of mine (Mr. Bhasker) since I was interested in getting some articles that I had penned and given to him for his consideration many years ago. The trouble was I didn't have his telephone number. So I rang up another colleague with whom I am in closer touch (Karthik) to fetch the number of Bhasker. So when I rang up Karthik, he told me that he wanted to in fact ring me up just to enquire how I was. Then again, on getting the name of Bhasker and ringing him up, he told me that he too was thinking about me and was intent on ringing me up or contacting me as he was perchance attracted to information on Mount Kailash which I had visited recently, as he had suddenly come up on the name of a certain Sadhu Sundar Singh and CHRISTIAN HERMIT IN A MOUNTAIN CAVE - THE MAHARISHI OF KAILASH. Mr Bhasker asked me to consult the Internet by searching on 'Sadhu Sundar Singh'.
So it accidentally happened that I got the information that Sadhu Sundar Singh was born a Sikh at Rampur, Punjab in 1889. He converted to Christianity in 1903 after he had a vision of Jesus Christ while he was intent on attempting suicide. He first visited Tibet in 1908 before entering a Christian Divinity College in 1909. Abandoned his preacher's life in 1911 and again became a 'Christian sadhu'. And from Wikipedia I get the following: "That first year, 1912, he returned with an extraordinary account of finding a three-hundred-year old Christian hermit in a mountain cave-the Maharishi of Kailas, with whom he spent some weeks in deep fellowship."
For many years I've been strongly feeling (thinking?) that God is either not Muslim (Allah), Christian or Jewish (Jehovah), Hindu (Shiva, Vishnu, etc.) or Zoroastrian or is all of these. I tend to credit myself with having a rather secular and liberal viewpoint and in being broadminded. But could what I'm feeling and thinking be due to a reason outside me? Like being exposed to information about Sadhu Sundar Singh and such things for instance. In fact most of my readings that I came across by chance were such that it promoted a secular nature. Of course, it is also true that I had an inherent preference for such a bent of writings. But then, is it only the environment in which I was raised that is responsible or are there other factors that have not been given due importance. Why do you find a one year old (or maybe a two year old) child having strong preferences - some don't like curds, some have an inherent dislike for certain vegetables. So if by some outside chance I have a character that can be called 'liberal', 'good', 'progressive' how much credit must I appropriate to myself.
If such happenstances help to make this blog interesting am I to take the full credit?
No comments:
Post a Comment