My first memory of him was of him standing on the pier at Southampton waving to us as the ssCarthage docked. He was wearing a light coloured jacket and had come to receive us as we joined him…that was my father…Dad to me, Mr KN Ramanathan, Anna and other terms to the rest of the world…
For the next thirty one years we were together…there were occasions when Dad and I did not see eye to eye…like the occasion, as an eighteen year old, I wrote an article supporting legalizing abortions and Khushwant Singh published it in the Illustrated Weekly under the bye line, KR Ramanathan…and somebody called Dad to congratulate him on his progressive viewpoint...Dad had nothing for or against legalizing abortions…the only thing was that he felt that it should not be mistaken that a retired General Manager of the Press Trust of India, a leading Theosophist and a much respected senior was talking about these apparently (to him) frivolous things…so he told me, “I have nothing against what you write…please use the name Raja Ramanathan when you write in future…so that people do not think it is me writing…”
I had the bug to write very early in life…brought on by all the articles that Dorai Anna was writing…so, at age five I once scribbled the alphabet or something like that, stole money from Akka’s wallet for the postage and posted it to "the Hindu" office in London…I also enclosed a one Pound note since I had heard that one had to pay the newspapers to publish your thoughts…whoever received the letter recognized the address and called up Anna, who was the seniormost Indian journalist in London then and asked him to come and collect the note (I think one Pound wasn’t enough for them...more may have done the trick...)…he came home that evening and asked me where I got the money from…I told him, a la George Washington of cherry tree fame and others, “from Akka’s wallet”…he laughed and told Akka, “…this child wants to write that is why he stole the money…I will help him…” from then on, I would write and he taught me how to type since he told me that all articles had to be typed and I would have submit them for his review…I could type much before I could write full sentences in long hand…he also wanted me to learn shorthand, and, paid my fees several times over to achieve this, which never came to pass…nothing ever got published, till Chandy and Annie took pity on me and put my articles in "the Itinerant Indian", but, it taught me much about how to deal with a child stealing money to do something he wanted to…
Throughout his life he never disciplined me (Dorai Anna may say, “Yes. That was the problem…”)…he would always make his point, sometime forcefully, and, then move on…yet, most importantly, if you made a mistake doing it the way you thought was good, he was there to bail you out…and that was another parenting lesson I learnt, “As long as I am alive, and, this house is there, you and your family have a meal here…” he was the ultimate safe haven, a place you could go to when there were storms raging and fires burning all around…
When we learnt that his old duodenal ulcer had turned into a carcinoma, I remember praying that he would pass away without having to suffer the pain of cancer or live the indignity of being connected to tubes…I am, given my limited perspective of life and pain, happy to report that prayer was answered…he died as they were strengthening his lungs prior to fixing a date for radical surgery…he did not have to live connected to tubes…
I remember the evening, February 28, twenty eight years ago, when he was already in a coma for about twelve hours…suddenly his body heaved and Akka who was by his side, realized what was happening…breaking into tears herself, she told me to recite the Universal Prayer, written by Dr Besant, his mentor, as the breaths started slowing down and Dad moved into the great beyond...
O Hidden Life vibrant in every atom
O Hidden Light shining in every creature
O Hidden Love embracing all in oneness
May each who knows himself as
One with thee
Know he is therefore
One with every other
And that is my last memory of him…
Thanks, Dad wherever you are
PS--- Goenkaji, I am slowly beginning to sense what you mean when you say, “The debt you owe to your parents can never be paid off, however many lives you live…”
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Yours wistfully
Surfing aimlessly across the internet yesterday, I stumbled across a collection of official correspondence of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India…Most of the letters in the collection dated to 1959 and as I have heard of a 50-year archiving rule before they become public I think the letters must have just been released…
Rajen Babu as he was known, was, to begin with, a brilliant lawyer having topped several Calcutta (?) University exams before going on to get his Doctor of Laws…he subsequently became quite a renowned lawyer in Bhagalpur…till his skill at writing petitions on behalf of the indigo workers of Champaran brought him to the attention of Gandhi…and the rest, as they say, is history…
His official correspondence as President of India gives us a wonderful whiff at the simple and at the same time brilliant mind of this very great man…all the values of the Gandhian freedom fighters come through, and, the also the first hints of transition away…for example, there is a very interesting piece of correspondence between him and Nehru (hereinafter referred to as Panditji) about the size of the delegation, consisting of largely family members, that Rajen Babu took on a state visit to Ceylon…Nehru starts off by saying that we need to be sensitive to the strain these state visits put on the host country…and Rajen Babu, in the end, acknowledging that he would definitely keep this in mind for the future…
In the correspondence that I read, Sri Prakasa, then the Governor of Bombay, and, Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Home Minister come through as his closest friends…Sri Prakasa and he have exchanged letters on how Rajen Babu felt that Sri Prakasa should not take the Night Air Mail flight to Delhi (remember that institution of the ‘50s/ ‘60s, the planes coming from Bombay, Delhi, Madras and Calcutta to Nagpur, and, going back with the mail) because it would tire him…and Sri Prakasa saying how it would save money…catch any Governor of today caring for such things…
The gentle humanness of Rajen Babu is so transparent…Padmaja Naidu, the then Governor of West Bengal and Sarojini Naidu’s daughter is ill with a temperature and heading to Delhi for a Governors’ conference…Rajen Babu tells her, “Come and stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan so that I can have you properly looked after…”
The Gandhian in him comes through clearly in the numerous letters where he refuses invitations to serve on Committees or recommend friends from the past to jobs…”it would not be appropriate for me in my present role to do so. I hope you will understand…” he says time and again to friends he spent time in British jails with. The only occasion I see him express an interest is when the veteran Gandhian, G. Ramachandran asks him to join the Trust of the institution he is setting up in Gandhigram, near Madurai…”Let me talk to the Prime Minister about this,” Rajen Babu says…
The camaraderie of the freedom fighters is evident in every affectionate letter that he writes…whether it be on the death of a family member…a marriage he cannot attend…or just inquiring about their health…”Keep me informed of how you are recovering” he tells so many of his former jail mates and they do…and his affectionate notes to the families as his colleagues pass away…”It is inevitable, but that does not reduce the pain. I am with you…” is his constant refrain...
Some of the letters also very deeply reflect the strong chasm that existed between Rajen Babu and Panditji…Rajen Babu was definitely old school Gandhian…Panditji talked of the hydro electric dams being the temples of modern India…there is a twelve page letter he has written to Panditji on what he feels needs to be done to help the country…which includes introducing Gandhiji’s “Nayi Talim”, basic education, making Hindi the official language and providing incentives for Khandsari (home made jaggery) projects…wish I were a fly on the wall to see and hear Panditji’s responses to his suggestions…
Rajen Babu was not Panditji’s choice for President of India…Panditji would have preferred Rajaji…and that comes through in their world view…in one letter Panditji tells him that it would be preferable if he called him to discuss these different views rather than write about them…this is one place where Rajen Babu tells Panditji to go fly a kite…he feels it is his constitutional obligation to communicate his thoughts and he intends to do so the way he choses…
I would have loved to read the correspondence that must have been exchanged in 1955 between Panditji and Rajen Babu over the Hindu Code Bill…At one stage Rajen Babu who was opposed to the Bill had told Panditji that he would not sign it…Nehru bluntly told him that the President was a ceremonial role and that he had no option but to sign it…
Somewhat prophetic is also his letter to Panditji asking him to ensure that the coming budget (1960) provided enough money to defend the border with China…
Despite their differences they were old colleagues and there is an affectionate letter from Nehru inviting Rajen Babu to join him and the Cabinet for lunch on December 3, 1959, which was Rajen Babu’s seventy fifth birthday…and Rajen Babu’s acknowledgement of the invitation is equally touching…
There is an old world wistfulness that I experienced as I read these letters…a world where even politics was gentlemanly…it reminded me of the walk I took in Besant Nagar during this holiday one Saturday morning…after a few minutes it struck me that there was no fragrance of idlis and sambar cooking any more and no one played MS’ Suprabatham anymore, like they used to in the ‘70s…they are gone, and, so is the spirit of Rajen Babu and his letters…gone…
And then the realization...”Change,” they say is the only, “permanent thing…”
Rajen Babu as he was known, was, to begin with, a brilliant lawyer having topped several Calcutta (?) University exams before going on to get his Doctor of Laws…he subsequently became quite a renowned lawyer in Bhagalpur…till his skill at writing petitions on behalf of the indigo workers of Champaran brought him to the attention of Gandhi…and the rest, as they say, is history…
His official correspondence as President of India gives us a wonderful whiff at the simple and at the same time brilliant mind of this very great man…all the values of the Gandhian freedom fighters come through, and, the also the first hints of transition away…for example, there is a very interesting piece of correspondence between him and Nehru (hereinafter referred to as Panditji) about the size of the delegation, consisting of largely family members, that Rajen Babu took on a state visit to Ceylon…Nehru starts off by saying that we need to be sensitive to the strain these state visits put on the host country…and Rajen Babu, in the end, acknowledging that he would definitely keep this in mind for the future…
In the correspondence that I read, Sri Prakasa, then the Governor of Bombay, and, Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Home Minister come through as his closest friends…Sri Prakasa and he have exchanged letters on how Rajen Babu felt that Sri Prakasa should not take the Night Air Mail flight to Delhi (remember that institution of the ‘50s/ ‘60s, the planes coming from Bombay, Delhi, Madras and Calcutta to Nagpur, and, going back with the mail) because it would tire him…and Sri Prakasa saying how it would save money…catch any Governor of today caring for such things…
The gentle humanness of Rajen Babu is so transparent…Padmaja Naidu, the then Governor of West Bengal and Sarojini Naidu’s daughter is ill with a temperature and heading to Delhi for a Governors’ conference…Rajen Babu tells her, “Come and stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan so that I can have you properly looked after…”
The Gandhian in him comes through clearly in the numerous letters where he refuses invitations to serve on Committees or recommend friends from the past to jobs…”it would not be appropriate for me in my present role to do so. I hope you will understand…” he says time and again to friends he spent time in British jails with. The only occasion I see him express an interest is when the veteran Gandhian, G. Ramachandran asks him to join the Trust of the institution he is setting up in Gandhigram, near Madurai…”Let me talk to the Prime Minister about this,” Rajen Babu says…
The camaraderie of the freedom fighters is evident in every affectionate letter that he writes…whether it be on the death of a family member…a marriage he cannot attend…or just inquiring about their health…”Keep me informed of how you are recovering” he tells so many of his former jail mates and they do…and his affectionate notes to the families as his colleagues pass away…”It is inevitable, but that does not reduce the pain. I am with you…” is his constant refrain...
Some of the letters also very deeply reflect the strong chasm that existed between Rajen Babu and Panditji…Rajen Babu was definitely old school Gandhian…Panditji talked of the hydro electric dams being the temples of modern India…there is a twelve page letter he has written to Panditji on what he feels needs to be done to help the country…which includes introducing Gandhiji’s “Nayi Talim”, basic education, making Hindi the official language and providing incentives for Khandsari (home made jaggery) projects…wish I were a fly on the wall to see and hear Panditji’s responses to his suggestions…
Rajen Babu was not Panditji’s choice for President of India…Panditji would have preferred Rajaji…and that comes through in their world view…in one letter Panditji tells him that it would be preferable if he called him to discuss these different views rather than write about them…this is one place where Rajen Babu tells Panditji to go fly a kite…he feels it is his constitutional obligation to communicate his thoughts and he intends to do so the way he choses…
I would have loved to read the correspondence that must have been exchanged in 1955 between Panditji and Rajen Babu over the Hindu Code Bill…At one stage Rajen Babu who was opposed to the Bill had told Panditji that he would not sign it…Nehru bluntly told him that the President was a ceremonial role and that he had no option but to sign it…
Somewhat prophetic is also his letter to Panditji asking him to ensure that the coming budget (1960) provided enough money to defend the border with China…
Despite their differences they were old colleagues and there is an affectionate letter from Nehru inviting Rajen Babu to join him and the Cabinet for lunch on December 3, 1959, which was Rajen Babu’s seventy fifth birthday…and Rajen Babu’s acknowledgement of the invitation is equally touching…
There is an old world wistfulness that I experienced as I read these letters…a world where even politics was gentlemanly…it reminded me of the walk I took in Besant Nagar during this holiday one Saturday morning…after a few minutes it struck me that there was no fragrance of idlis and sambar cooking any more and no one played MS’ Suprabatham anymore, like they used to in the ‘70s…they are gone, and, so is the spirit of Rajen Babu and his letters…gone…
And then the realization...”Change,” they say is the only, “permanent thing…”
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The sage of Sindhula
It is now a week since we came back from India…the stomach is slowly settling back to the North American sterility…the glow of the warmth of the humanness that dominated the last four weeks alongside with the constantly upset stomach is beginning to become a memory…and the snow banks bring one back to the reality of the moment…the warmth was there, gone, the cold, snow is here, that is all that is real…the search for the next trip is the mind’s desire to re-enact enjoyable experiences and ignore the coldness of the snow…
As I sit back and look at the four weeks one experience stands out for me as going beyond words…and being the fool that I am, I shall try to put it in words…
Whenever in Bombay I have always tried to go and spend sometime in the presence of the sage of Sindhula (on Nowroji Gamadia Road), Ramesh Balsekar…this time, with my constantly upset stomach I was not sure that I would be able to do so…however, one morning, I think it was on Christmas Eve, I was able to manage to make it in between a breakfast date with my daughter and son-in-law at the Taj President and a shopping appointment…
After a quick breakfast at the Taj President I caught a taxi and got off about kilometre ahead of the correct intersection, more by mistake than design…as I walked through the early morning Bombay traffic I realized how out of shape I was, physically, and, mentally ?
Balsekar’s satsangs used to start at 9.00am and the watchman would let us in by 8.50am. So, when I reached at 8.45am, I was a little surprised when he told me that the satsangs now started at 9.30am, and, I could go up at 9.20am. My North American efficiency was offended…why had they not changed the posting on the website ? I could have spent another half hour in air conditioned comfort at the Taj President ? Supposedly the anger of an organized mind…in reality the sputterings of one’s ego that is caught up in ideas…
I sat myself down on the steps of Sindhula building and watched the motley crowd of satsangis come…a white woman who looked like a relic of the hippie revolution…a forty something Indian woman who looked like a liberated lesbian from Lamington Road…men in shorts and a man trying to find place to park his Mercedes…and then, of course, Shirish who is Balsekar’s aide de camp…Shirish recognized me and we spoke…I didn’t see his wife Kalindi, didn’t ask him…maybe they are no longer together…
The watchman let us in at 9.10 and I used the somewhat rickety lift of Sindhula
Balsekar is now past ninety and has undergo surgeries…he is very frail and uses a walker to move around…so much has changed since I first met him in 2002…there is still fire in him, but, it burns differently, not with the crackle that was there in 2002…
These days Balsekar does not talk much…they play a video of one of his talks and he sometimes makes a comment or if someone asks a question responds to the question…
He came in, and, the Liberated Lesbian gave him a hug…he sat down, wiped his mouth with the clean hand towel he always has…looked around to survey the motely crowd in front of him…I was swinging away on the jhoola and somehow decided to be more respectful when he caught my eye and moved to a chair…
The video came on and a Balsekar of some ten years earlier was talking with a person who was a medical doctor…the difference between the sage and the common human is that the sage has no sense of personal doership…the sense of personal doership is what distinguishes the human from the sage and the animal…
JP Singh who records Balsekar’s talks had told me to jot down any questions and ask Balsekar towards the end…he gave me a book and I made furious notes…Why does the Source create a sense of personal doership as the sense of personal doership seems to the cause of all trouble ?
Waited, like back in the IIMA days to get the maximum impact for my question…my friend Ramki whom I met in Chennai with whom I appeared for the IIMA group discussion tells me that in 1969 I was adept at making a comment in a group discussion at the most advantageous moment…creating a stir and then going off to sleep…
And then, I caught the sage’s eye…went in front of him, sat down on the cushion, and, introduced myself as Dr Phadnis’ friend, uncle of Radha, Dr Phadnis’ daughter-in-law…unlike in the past, the sage nodded in recognition, not with much warmth…I was disappointed…I remember how happy I had been when once he told me that ‘Yes. I can see you are Radha’s uncle…she looks like you very much…’ the mind had been hoping for that sort of a stroke…the guru had a different message this time…
With all the deftness of the logic that years of academic learning has given me I logicked with Ramesh, like I had with Swami Chinmayananda forty years ago…”If the feeling of doership is the root cause of the problems, why does the Source, supposedly infinte in compassion give us that ?”…I asked the sage…
Diamond cuts diamond is what comes to my mind…but that is presumptuous for I am no diamond…the diamond of Balsekar’s mind honed with enlightenment and his own academic training at LSE bore down on me…
“What are you ? He raised his fingers, pointed at me, ‘you are just a three dimensional object’ How do you presume that with this limited, defined in space time and mind you will understand the infinite ? Just accept that it is part of the divine hypnosis, Leela and stop struggling…”
I bent down to do pranam and he accepted the bowed head…I was about to get up and go when I sensed that the sage was not done with me…
“What did you think of the video ? All the questions that the doctor kept asking ?”
I hesitated, not knowing what to say…”I think his search was deep and hence all the questions…” I uttered the words without really having something to say…
The sage looked at me deep…picked up his clean hand towel and wiped his mouth and swallowed…”You know when you ask a question, try and see why you ask a question…there has to be sincerity in asking a question…not the pride that goes with the assumption that you have the answers…the sense that I have to cross examine this man to get at the truth…the Guru does not work that way…when you come to me, keep yourself open, not full of your ideas…if you have too many ideas that keep surfacing you will never be able to hear what the Guru has to say…to hear the Guru you have to be humble, not cross examining with pride…”
The sage had nothing further to say…he once again wiped his mouth with the clean hand towel…beckoned to the next questioner…to me it sounds like the words of Krishna
Athava bahunai tena
kim gya’tena tava’rjuna
vishtabhyaham idam sarvam
ekam sena’stito jagat
Of what use is this knowledge to you Arjuna ?
All that you need to know is that in a fraction of myself I sustain the whole Universe
I am still not listening with emptiness…the mind is still showing off, dancing a jig to show how much I have read and now…when all that shit diarrheas out of the system then I will be ready for the sage…
----
As I sit back and look at the four weeks one experience stands out for me as going beyond words…and being the fool that I am, I shall try to put it in words…
Whenever in Bombay I have always tried to go and spend sometime in the presence of the sage of Sindhula (on Nowroji Gamadia Road), Ramesh Balsekar…this time, with my constantly upset stomach I was not sure that I would be able to do so…however, one morning, I think it was on Christmas Eve, I was able to manage to make it in between a breakfast date with my daughter and son-in-law at the Taj President and a shopping appointment…
After a quick breakfast at the Taj President I caught a taxi and got off about kilometre ahead of the correct intersection, more by mistake than design…as I walked through the early morning Bombay traffic I realized how out of shape I was, physically, and, mentally ?
Balsekar’s satsangs used to start at 9.00am and the watchman would let us in by 8.50am. So, when I reached at 8.45am, I was a little surprised when he told me that the satsangs now started at 9.30am, and, I could go up at 9.20am. My North American efficiency was offended…why had they not changed the posting on the website ? I could have spent another half hour in air conditioned comfort at the Taj President ? Supposedly the anger of an organized mind…in reality the sputterings of one’s ego that is caught up in ideas…
I sat myself down on the steps of Sindhula building and watched the motley crowd of satsangis come…a white woman who looked like a relic of the hippie revolution…a forty something Indian woman who looked like a liberated lesbian from Lamington Road…men in shorts and a man trying to find place to park his Mercedes…and then, of course, Shirish who is Balsekar’s aide de camp…Shirish recognized me and we spoke…I didn’t see his wife Kalindi, didn’t ask him…maybe they are no longer together…
The watchman let us in at 9.10 and I used the somewhat rickety lift of Sindhula
Balsekar is now past ninety and has undergo surgeries…he is very frail and uses a walker to move around…so much has changed since I first met him in 2002…there is still fire in him, but, it burns differently, not with the crackle that was there in 2002…
These days Balsekar does not talk much…they play a video of one of his talks and he sometimes makes a comment or if someone asks a question responds to the question…
He came in, and, the Liberated Lesbian gave him a hug…he sat down, wiped his mouth with the clean hand towel he always has…looked around to survey the motely crowd in front of him…I was swinging away on the jhoola and somehow decided to be more respectful when he caught my eye and moved to a chair…
The video came on and a Balsekar of some ten years earlier was talking with a person who was a medical doctor…the difference between the sage and the common human is that the sage has no sense of personal doership…the sense of personal doership is what distinguishes the human from the sage and the animal…
JP Singh who records Balsekar’s talks had told me to jot down any questions and ask Balsekar towards the end…he gave me a book and I made furious notes…Why does the Source create a sense of personal doership as the sense of personal doership seems to the cause of all trouble ?
Waited, like back in the IIMA days to get the maximum impact for my question…my friend Ramki whom I met in Chennai with whom I appeared for the IIMA group discussion tells me that in 1969 I was adept at making a comment in a group discussion at the most advantageous moment…creating a stir and then going off to sleep…
And then, I caught the sage’s eye…went in front of him, sat down on the cushion, and, introduced myself as Dr Phadnis’ friend, uncle of Radha, Dr Phadnis’ daughter-in-law…unlike in the past, the sage nodded in recognition, not with much warmth…I was disappointed…I remember how happy I had been when once he told me that ‘Yes. I can see you are Radha’s uncle…she looks like you very much…’ the mind had been hoping for that sort of a stroke…the guru had a different message this time…
With all the deftness of the logic that years of academic learning has given me I logicked with Ramesh, like I had with Swami Chinmayananda forty years ago…”If the feeling of doership is the root cause of the problems, why does the Source, supposedly infinte in compassion give us that ?”…I asked the sage…
Diamond cuts diamond is what comes to my mind…but that is presumptuous for I am no diamond…the diamond of Balsekar’s mind honed with enlightenment and his own academic training at LSE bore down on me…
“What are you ? He raised his fingers, pointed at me, ‘you are just a three dimensional object’ How do you presume that with this limited, defined in space time and mind you will understand the infinite ? Just accept that it is part of the divine hypnosis, Leela and stop struggling…”
I bent down to do pranam and he accepted the bowed head…I was about to get up and go when I sensed that the sage was not done with me…
“What did you think of the video ? All the questions that the doctor kept asking ?”
I hesitated, not knowing what to say…”I think his search was deep and hence all the questions…” I uttered the words without really having something to say…
The sage looked at me deep…picked up his clean hand towel and wiped his mouth and swallowed…”You know when you ask a question, try and see why you ask a question…there has to be sincerity in asking a question…not the pride that goes with the assumption that you have the answers…the sense that I have to cross examine this man to get at the truth…the Guru does not work that way…when you come to me, keep yourself open, not full of your ideas…if you have too many ideas that keep surfacing you will never be able to hear what the Guru has to say…to hear the Guru you have to be humble, not cross examining with pride…”
The sage had nothing further to say…he once again wiped his mouth with the clean hand towel…beckoned to the next questioner…to me it sounds like the words of Krishna
Athava bahunai tena
kim gya’tena tava’rjuna
vishtabhyaham idam sarvam
ekam sena’stito jagat
Of what use is this knowledge to you Arjuna ?
All that you need to know is that in a fraction of myself I sustain the whole Universe
I am still not listening with emptiness…the mind is still showing off, dancing a jig to show how much I have read and now…when all that shit diarrheas out of the system then I will be ready for the sage…
----
The White Tiger
The White Tiger, a review
Very rarely, in recent years, have I sat through and read a book from cover to cover, at one sitting...yesterday evening, around 5pm, I took up Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger"...I had seen the book in India, read reviews and yesterday discovered that beti pyaari had picked up a copy...
Started reading it with the usual scepticism.. .however, as the pages passed, it gripped me...sat till around 10pm reading the book before I nodded off...given the fact that by 10pm I have generally been asleep for about two hours, this should give you an indicator of how I was absorbed...finished the 250+ pages of the book this afternoon...
The fact that I have just returned from India, and, this book is all about what is happening within India perhaps made it so immediately absorbing... and then, a lot of the book is set in Gurgaon and I had just been in Gurgaon, and, could relate to all that was being said...I could recognize the malls and the Buckingham and Windsor mansions...this book gives one dimension of the changing face of India...or, in reality, is there a change at all, or, have just the players and the stage changed ?
The irreverence of the book was what held my attention to begin with...the writer describes Krishna (of the Bhagavad Gita fame) as one more chauffeur... and the descriptions of the filth of the Ganges...the book ends with the same irreverence where the protagonist hopes to found a 'good' school where children will not have to learn about God and Gandhi...
For the last eight years, ever since the call center revolution I have been travelling to India once or so a year...I have also sat listening to my North American friends returning and telling me how India is booming...Diet Pepsi and Kit Kat being freely available being the yardstick of such prosperity.. .I have always felt a nagging feeling of discomfort.. .Aravind Adiga draws a clear picture of this discomfort through the letters that his protagonist, Balram Halwai writes to the Chinese Prime Minister...
There is a brutality to poverty that is difficult to accept...it is different from the pictures of westerners adopting chubby orphans through World Vision...that brutality comes through loud and clear in cockroach infested servants quarters of Buckingham Apartments that Balram lives in...it comes through in the 'ammonia' smell of parking lots where drivers have to wait and urinate as they wait for their masters and mistresses to come back from late night parties...and more than anything else the principle of the Rooster Coop that keeps the poor and poverty going...
In the '20s when Katherine Mayo came out with Mother India, Gandhi wrote of it, '... it is the report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon, or to give a graphic description of the stench exuded by the opened drains...' In a sense Aravind Adiga's book could also be described as a drain inspector's report...however, I say that in an entirely complimentary sense...it takes courage for someone to expose the underbelly of the call centre revolution.. .looks like many have not read the book yet in India, or there would have been outcry by now to have Aravind deported...
One thing that struck me at a very personal level was the Rumi quotation that Aravind keeps using,
Like a madman I kept searching for the key
And then I realized the door was open...
Read the book to see how Rumi helps a rooster escapes the Rooster Coop...be ready for much gore, dirt and crap...a tremendous read...there is no moral at the end of the story...as Mr Ashok would have said...sorry, let me not take the punch line away...read it to see what Mr Ashok would have said to Pinky Madam...
Very rarely, in recent years, have I sat through and read a book from cover to cover, at one sitting...yesterday evening, around 5pm, I took up Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger"...I had seen the book in India, read reviews and yesterday discovered that beti pyaari had picked up a copy...
Started reading it with the usual scepticism.. .however, as the pages passed, it gripped me...sat till around 10pm reading the book before I nodded off...given the fact that by 10pm I have generally been asleep for about two hours, this should give you an indicator of how I was absorbed...finished the 250+ pages of the book this afternoon...
The fact that I have just returned from India, and, this book is all about what is happening within India perhaps made it so immediately absorbing... and then, a lot of the book is set in Gurgaon and I had just been in Gurgaon, and, could relate to all that was being said...I could recognize the malls and the Buckingham and Windsor mansions...this book gives one dimension of the changing face of India...or, in reality, is there a change at all, or, have just the players and the stage changed ?
The irreverence of the book was what held my attention to begin with...the writer describes Krishna (of the Bhagavad Gita fame) as one more chauffeur... and the descriptions of the filth of the Ganges...the book ends with the same irreverence where the protagonist hopes to found a 'good' school where children will not have to learn about God and Gandhi...
For the last eight years, ever since the call center revolution I have been travelling to India once or so a year...I have also sat listening to my North American friends returning and telling me how India is booming...Diet Pepsi and Kit Kat being freely available being the yardstick of such prosperity.. .I have always felt a nagging feeling of discomfort.. .Aravind Adiga draws a clear picture of this discomfort through the letters that his protagonist, Balram Halwai writes to the Chinese Prime Minister...
There is a brutality to poverty that is difficult to accept...it is different from the pictures of westerners adopting chubby orphans through World Vision...that brutality comes through loud and clear in cockroach infested servants quarters of Buckingham Apartments that Balram lives in...it comes through in the 'ammonia' smell of parking lots where drivers have to wait and urinate as they wait for their masters and mistresses to come back from late night parties...and more than anything else the principle of the Rooster Coop that keeps the poor and poverty going...
In the '20s when Katherine Mayo came out with Mother India, Gandhi wrote of it, '... it is the report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon, or to give a graphic description of the stench exuded by the opened drains...' In a sense Aravind Adiga's book could also be described as a drain inspector's report...however, I say that in an entirely complimentary sense...it takes courage for someone to expose the underbelly of the call centre revolution.. .looks like many have not read the book yet in India, or there would have been outcry by now to have Aravind deported...
One thing that struck me at a very personal level was the Rumi quotation that Aravind keeps using,
Like a madman I kept searching for the key
And then I realized the door was open...
Read the book to see how Rumi helps a rooster escapes the Rooster Coop...be ready for much gore, dirt and crap...a tremendous read...there is no moral at the end of the story...as Mr Ashok would have said...sorry, let me not take the punch line away...read it to see what Mr Ashok would have said to Pinky Madam...
Thursday, August 14, 2008
A thought for a sixty first birthday
At the stroke of the midnight hour today, when the rest of the world sleeps, India will awaken to its sixty first birthday. Words modified from that memorable speech that India's first Prime Minister, a dreamer, a romantic, above all, my political hero non pareil, Jawaharlal Nehru, gave as the new nation awoke to life and freedom.
This morning, in the several messages that come to me from friends I have known over the years, was a video clip from my good friend Harihara Sarma Sethunathan. Sethu and I have known each from the days we were fifteen, attending Pre University classes at Madras', Vivekananda College. It was a clip of Gandhi's favourite bhajan, a song composed by the sixteenth (or maybe seventeenth century, a matter of trivia) mystic, Narsi Mehta. The song which many who have seen the movie Gandhi would have heard, is Vaishnav Jana Tho, and essentially means
For he or she is the true believer
He or she
Who knows the pain of the other
For those of you who would like to hear it here is a YouTube link
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=PGSf5SIWi1E
The clip is from the movie, Water, a movie, I think, banned in India. Some say that though it is truthful even Gandhi would have called it a 'sanitary inspector's report' like he described Katherine Mayo's book, Mother India.
Notwithstanding the merits of the movie, I have intentionally reproduced the clip, for it contains and captures the hope that Gandhi represented. Look at that scene, the child widow being carried in, the silent masses, and, the single, old man, sitting like the Buddha on the Dhamma Peetha (seat of wisdom) his head bowed in contemplation, and, the love with which he affectionately holds the child who garlands him...and in that there is a new consciousness that one becomes aware of...a consciousness that the Buddha was aware of when he said, "...for hate cannot be conquered by hate...love alone can conquer hate..."a consciousness that Gandhi brought into Satyagraha...
And a strange thought came to me...
In my college days I have read at great length debates in the Indian Constituent Assembly (pre-Independence Parliament) about whether Jana Gana Mana composed by Tagore or Bankim Chandra's Vande Mataram should be the national anthem. On the one hand we had the secularists and on the other, the upholders of a Hindu nationhood. The secularists won, thanks largely to my political hero's insistence that the last verses of the Vande Mataram were not representative of a multi cultural society (in fact several versions of the Vande Mataram do not carry those verses any more)...
Though Vande Mataram was popular in those days no one, even my political hero, did not think of making it the national anthem...wouldn't that have been such a tribute to what Gandhi had believed in...
So, the thought, which I know will get nowhere in the power politics of today, why not make Vaishnav Jan Tho the new national anthem ? Imagine the sight, President Bush or Putin of Russia lands in Delhi. Instead of the traditional jingoistic twenty one gun salute and inspection of the honour guard, they stand for two minutes in silence as the band plays the strains of
Vaishnav Jana Tho
tene kahiye
je peer parayi jaani re
and, an English version, or a Russian one, or a version in a language that those on the podium can understand...
Just a thought, it will perhaps go nowhere today...
However, I recall what Eckhart Tolle says in the opening pages of his recent book, The New Earth. When the first flower struggled its way through the cracks of a mountainside a few million years ago, it had no awareness that it was the start of a new consciousness, one that we associate with beauty, fragrance and peace, today...
And so, as we celebrate the sixty first birthday of India's Independence, a minute's silent meditation as we listen to and reflect on the words of this YouTube clip
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=PGSf5SIWi1E
Thanks for the thought, Sethu...
This morning, in the several messages that come to me from friends I have known over the years, was a video clip from my good friend Harihara Sarma Sethunathan. Sethu and I have known each from the days we were fifteen, attending Pre University classes at Madras', Vivekananda College. It was a clip of Gandhi's favourite bhajan, a song composed by the sixteenth (or maybe seventeenth century, a matter of trivia) mystic, Narsi Mehta. The song which many who have seen the movie Gandhi would have heard, is Vaishnav Jana Tho, and essentially means
For he or she is the true believer
He or she
Who knows the pain of the other
For those of you who would like to hear it here is a YouTube link
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=PGSf5SIWi1E
The clip is from the movie, Water, a movie, I think, banned in India. Some say that though it is truthful even Gandhi would have called it a 'sanitary inspector's report' like he described Katherine Mayo's book, Mother India.
Notwithstanding the merits of the movie, I have intentionally reproduced the clip, for it contains and captures the hope that Gandhi represented. Look at that scene, the child widow being carried in, the silent masses, and, the single, old man, sitting like the Buddha on the Dhamma Peetha (seat of wisdom) his head bowed in contemplation, and, the love with which he affectionately holds the child who garlands him...and in that there is a new consciousness that one becomes aware of...a consciousness that the Buddha was aware of when he said, "...for hate cannot be conquered by hate...love alone can conquer hate..."a consciousness that Gandhi brought into Satyagraha...
And a strange thought came to me...
In my college days I have read at great length debates in the Indian Constituent Assembly (pre-Independence Parliament) about whether Jana Gana Mana composed by Tagore or Bankim Chandra's Vande Mataram should be the national anthem. On the one hand we had the secularists and on the other, the upholders of a Hindu nationhood. The secularists won, thanks largely to my political hero's insistence that the last verses of the Vande Mataram were not representative of a multi cultural society (in fact several versions of the Vande Mataram do not carry those verses any more)...
Though Vande Mataram was popular in those days no one, even my political hero, did not think of making it the national anthem...wouldn't that have been such a tribute to what Gandhi had believed in...
So, the thought, which I know will get nowhere in the power politics of today, why not make Vaishnav Jan Tho the new national anthem ? Imagine the sight, President Bush or Putin of Russia lands in Delhi. Instead of the traditional jingoistic twenty one gun salute and inspection of the honour guard, they stand for two minutes in silence as the band plays the strains of
Vaishnav Jana Tho
tene kahiye
je peer parayi jaani re
and, an English version, or a Russian one, or a version in a language that those on the podium can understand...
Just a thought, it will perhaps go nowhere today...
However, I recall what Eckhart Tolle says in the opening pages of his recent book, The New Earth. When the first flower struggled its way through the cracks of a mountainside a few million years ago, it had no awareness that it was the start of a new consciousness, one that we associate with beauty, fragrance and peace, today...
And so, as we celebrate the sixty first birthday of India's Independence, a minute's silent meditation as we listen to and reflect on the words of this YouTube clip
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=PGSf5SIWi1E
Thanks for the thought, Sethu...
Monday, June 9, 2008
Banker to the Poor
As I caught sight of him in the foyer of the Grand Ballroom at Toronto's Royal York Hotel, it struck me how differently attired he was from those he was talking to. Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, was in town today today to talk to Canada's Top100 employers. Dressed in a blue kurta and white pyjamas with a cotton waistcoat he looked so different from the blue suited gentry surrounding him. And, after I heard him, I realized that his approach to business was just as different from the majority of the audience as his attire.
He talked for about an hour without any intellectual pretensions, straight from the heart. "After the liberation of Bangladesh, I came back from the United States where I was teaching, to teach Economics at Dhaka University...then, in 1974, the famine struck in Bangladesh...I saw how people living around the University were dying...it occurred to me that instead of teaching elegant theories of economics I should do something as a human being to help the people around me..."
Talking and mingling with the people who lived around the University he realized how much they were in the grip of loan sharks. It shocked him further when a quick survey that he carried out revealed that the total debt carried by about 42 people in his sample was about $27. Paying interest rates that could reach 1000% these people were crippled by the burden of debt. So, his first attempt was to get the banks to loan money to these people.
As he tried to do this the truth of the adage that a successful banker is one who gives you an umbrella when there is no rain and takes it away when it rains, came home to him. None of the banks were willing to lend to these people, and, when he offered to co-sign documents for the small amounts they needed, they told him that he was kissing his money goodbye.
The rest is now history. Yunus' trust in his borrowers was fully borne out. He had 98% repayment. And all this, as he says, without a single lawyer on his team. He told us how a woman who was given a loan of $20 or so took the money with trembling hands. She had never seen that much money given to her on trust. Slowly the Grameen movement built up, and, they started giving student loans for children to study thus setting off social change. Interestingly a large number of Grameen's clientele are women.
What Yunus spoke of is a very different model of doing business, a very different language from profit maximization. It is deeply spiritual. He talked of how traditionally poverty has been fostered by what he calls "the Bonsai approach." You take the same seed as that of a tree that will grow well, confine it in a limited space and you have a stunted tree. "Cute to look at," he says, "but, not one that enables everyone reach their potential. " I think he used the words, 'cute to look at" intentionally, summarizing our approach to poverty, particularly the western world's approach to poverty in places like the Indian sub continent and Africa...
As he finished, the suited-booted audience rose to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. The language and the business model of Social Business Entrepreneurship (SBE) that he spoke of was different, like the clothes he wore. However, I think some in the corporate world are beginning to see the merit of what he is saying. Danone, has established Grameen Danone in Bangladesh to provide Yoghurt and help deal with malnutrition among children. Another French company is setting up plants to purify the water of arsenic. All based on models of SBE. He is now calling for a Social Stock Exchange where the effectiveness of companies will be measured by their contribution to long term social sustainability...
Yunus spoke of the interest free loans Grameen has been giving to beggars of Dhaka. These are interest free and he talked of how they have transformed the lives of the beggars. Now, while they still make the rounds for begging they also hawk vegetables and so on. When some of his colleagues get frustrated since they are still begging, Yunus tells them, with a touch of his humour, "They are restructuring their business model...give them time..."
I do not know how religious a man Muhammad Yunus is. Listening to him, I realized that he is giving a socially relevant twenty first century perspective to the Koranic injunction of not taking interest...one that is helping millions find meaning and will one day hopefully confine poverty to the museums, which is the only place where he wants to see it...
He talked for about an hour without any intellectual pretensions, straight from the heart. "After the liberation of Bangladesh, I came back from the United States where I was teaching, to teach Economics at Dhaka University...then, in 1974, the famine struck in Bangladesh...I saw how people living around the University were dying...it occurred to me that instead of teaching elegant theories of economics I should do something as a human being to help the people around me..."
Talking and mingling with the people who lived around the University he realized how much they were in the grip of loan sharks. It shocked him further when a quick survey that he carried out revealed that the total debt carried by about 42 people in his sample was about $27. Paying interest rates that could reach 1000% these people were crippled by the burden of debt. So, his first attempt was to get the banks to loan money to these people.
As he tried to do this the truth of the adage that a successful banker is one who gives you an umbrella when there is no rain and takes it away when it rains, came home to him. None of the banks were willing to lend to these people, and, when he offered to co-sign documents for the small amounts they needed, they told him that he was kissing his money goodbye.
The rest is now history. Yunus' trust in his borrowers was fully borne out. He had 98% repayment. And all this, as he says, without a single lawyer on his team. He told us how a woman who was given a loan of $20 or so took the money with trembling hands. She had never seen that much money given to her on trust. Slowly the Grameen movement built up, and, they started giving student loans for children to study thus setting off social change. Interestingly a large number of Grameen's clientele are women.
What Yunus spoke of is a very different model of doing business, a very different language from profit maximization. It is deeply spiritual. He talked of how traditionally poverty has been fostered by what he calls "the Bonsai approach." You take the same seed as that of a tree that will grow well, confine it in a limited space and you have a stunted tree. "Cute to look at," he says, "but, not one that enables everyone reach their potential. " I think he used the words, 'cute to look at" intentionally, summarizing our approach to poverty, particularly the western world's approach to poverty in places like the Indian sub continent and Africa...
As he finished, the suited-booted audience rose to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. The language and the business model of Social Business Entrepreneurship (SBE) that he spoke of was different, like the clothes he wore. However, I think some in the corporate world are beginning to see the merit of what he is saying. Danone, has established Grameen Danone in Bangladesh to provide Yoghurt and help deal with malnutrition among children. Another French company is setting up plants to purify the water of arsenic. All based on models of SBE. He is now calling for a Social Stock Exchange where the effectiveness of companies will be measured by their contribution to long term social sustainability...
Yunus spoke of the interest free loans Grameen has been giving to beggars of Dhaka. These are interest free and he talked of how they have transformed the lives of the beggars. Now, while they still make the rounds for begging they also hawk vegetables and so on. When some of his colleagues get frustrated since they are still begging, Yunus tells them, with a touch of his humour, "They are restructuring their business model...give them time..."
I do not know how religious a man Muhammad Yunus is. Listening to him, I realized that he is giving a socially relevant twenty first century perspective to the Koranic injunction of not taking interest...one that is helping millions find meaning and will one day hopefully confine poverty to the museums, which is the only place where he wants to see it...
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Flotsam and Jetsam
The sixties flower power poet Allan Ginsberg talks of his first experience of attending a meditation retreat in one of the Tibetan traditions. He had managed to smuggle in a sheet of paper and some pencils, and, as the teacher was going round at the start of the course, the teacher saw the contraband items. With a smile he walked up to Allan and asked him to hand them over. When Allan hesitated the teacher asked him, eyes brimming with compassion, as Allan says, "Why do you need them, my son ?" Allan replied, "To note down a beautiful thought that comes..." Pulling the pencils out of his hands and breaking them into two, the teacher said, "...and it is the flotsam and jetsam of these thoughts that will keep dragging you back into the whirlpool...just focus on your breath..."
So, as I sat this morning, the flotsam and jetsam of thoughts surfaced creating their frothy attractiveness...like the froth on the top of a cup of Madras coffee...attractive yet devoid of flavour or anything...
Thinking of Allan Ginsberg my mind went back to the senior citizen who had helped me at the library yesterday. I could imagine her at one of Allan's rock concerts of the mid '60s, perhaps with a flower garland around her neck...what struck me about her was that she had not coloured her hair, and, as I looked around the library which is staffed largely by women who are in their golden years, I noticed that none of them had coloured their hair. Made me wonder whether it was a conditon of employment...
Now, I have tremendous regard, bordering on reverence, for a woman who does not colour her hair. The male world is somewhat different, and, we guys can let it all hang out since there isn't much to show in any case. (Actually, men have different issues. The success of erectile dysfunction drugs on the pretext of creating a better quality of life should give you an indicator.) At one time I attended a course for hospice workers, and, one of our 'field trips' was to a funeral parlour where they showed us how bodies were 'dressed' up before a funeral. I remember one of my co-volunteers, a woman in her fifties saying, "I must make sure in my will to clearly state that they should colour my hair before the visitation..." That sort of indicates the criticality of hair colouring to women. So, when you see a woman somewhere around the sixty mark not colouring her hair you say, "Wow, that requires some courage...for what you see is what you get..."
And then the mind wandered further.
Swami Chinmayananda was a religious teacher of some note in the '60s, '70s and '80s in India. The same attraction that would take me to watch the Washington Redskin cheerleaders took me to Swamiji's meetings in the '60s. I used to be fascinated by the attractive women who sang the invocatory prayers at his meetings. I remember Swamiji once opening a Bhagavad Gita class with the opening dhyana (invocatory) verse, "...parthaya prati bodhitaam bhagavatam narayanena swayam..." And then the chant would be taken up by this bevy of attractive women in white blouses and saris. There was a strange wild attraction that the ascetic Swamiji held for them that bordered on the erotic.
Anyway, in those days I had just been introduced to the thought or lack thereof of some atheists. And, in a free question and answer session, I decided to confront the Swamiji. "If all bodily and mental activity is caused by electrical impulses that emerges from the brain, and, death is defined as the cessation of such electrical activity, how can there be a life after death ?" I asked the question in one breath...Swamiji did not answer my question at that point...I was thrilled. I had scored a point...
As we were having lunch, Swamiji actually made his way to me. "What is your name ?" he asked, adding, "You asked a good question. I did not reply to you because I wanted to talk to you..." And then he sat down next to me and said, "Your question is very logical and perhaps correct. However, you cannot understand these matters with logic. It is a matter of experiencing it. When you were just a day old, all you could see was a mass of light with some sounds emerging from this mass of light. Then slowly some figures started becoming clear...one of those figures fed you, made you go to sleep and rocked you when you cried...and as your pupils started functioning better you gave a name and shape to that being...your mother...your brilliant logic is the all enveloping light that you see, nothing is clear...slowly, your pupils will start digesting all that light and clarity will emerge...let it be...someday the clarity that is not born of logic will emerge..." Swamiji did not wait for my response, he just continued on.
The clarity has not emerged, some forty years later. I still struggle with logic and purposiveness. Some years ago, I asked a Vipassana teacher, "If you say that nothing is permanent and that everything just arises and dissolves what is it that reincarnates, if there is no soul..." In the mould of Swami Chinmayananda she looked at me and said, "Just continue your practice. It will all become clear..."
And, as I struggle with maintaining my fledgling practice in the midst of all these non-issues that thought creates, the reality of what the teacher told Allan Ginsberg comes through loud and clear, "...and this is the flotsam and jetsam that will keep pulling you back into the whirlpool..." For, as Krishna says at the end of Chapter 10 in the Bhagavad Gita
athava bahunai tena
kim jnatena tav'a'rjuna
vishtabhyaham idam sarvam
ekam sena's stitho jagat
Of what use is all this (intellectual) knowledge to you Arjuna ? All you need to know is that in a fraction of Myself I sustain the whole Universe...
So, as I sat this morning, the flotsam and jetsam of thoughts surfaced creating their frothy attractiveness...like the froth on the top of a cup of Madras coffee...attractive yet devoid of flavour or anything...
Thinking of Allan Ginsberg my mind went back to the senior citizen who had helped me at the library yesterday. I could imagine her at one of Allan's rock concerts of the mid '60s, perhaps with a flower garland around her neck...what struck me about her was that she had not coloured her hair, and, as I looked around the library which is staffed largely by women who are in their golden years, I noticed that none of them had coloured their hair. Made me wonder whether it was a conditon of employment...
Now, I have tremendous regard, bordering on reverence, for a woman who does not colour her hair. The male world is somewhat different, and, we guys can let it all hang out since there isn't much to show in any case. (Actually, men have different issues. The success of erectile dysfunction drugs on the pretext of creating a better quality of life should give you an indicator.) At one time I attended a course for hospice workers, and, one of our 'field trips' was to a funeral parlour where they showed us how bodies were 'dressed' up before a funeral. I remember one of my co-volunteers, a woman in her fifties saying, "I must make sure in my will to clearly state that they should colour my hair before the visitation..." That sort of indicates the criticality of hair colouring to women. So, when you see a woman somewhere around the sixty mark not colouring her hair you say, "Wow, that requires some courage...for what you see is what you get..."
And then the mind wandered further.
Swami Chinmayananda was a religious teacher of some note in the '60s, '70s and '80s in India. The same attraction that would take me to watch the Washington Redskin cheerleaders took me to Swamiji's meetings in the '60s. I used to be fascinated by the attractive women who sang the invocatory prayers at his meetings. I remember Swamiji once opening a Bhagavad Gita class with the opening dhyana (invocatory) verse, "...parthaya prati bodhitaam bhagavatam narayanena swayam..." And then the chant would be taken up by this bevy of attractive women in white blouses and saris. There was a strange wild attraction that the ascetic Swamiji held for them that bordered on the erotic.
Anyway, in those days I had just been introduced to the thought or lack thereof of some atheists. And, in a free question and answer session, I decided to confront the Swamiji. "If all bodily and mental activity is caused by electrical impulses that emerges from the brain, and, death is defined as the cessation of such electrical activity, how can there be a life after death ?" I asked the question in one breath...Swamiji did not answer my question at that point...I was thrilled. I had scored a point...
As we were having lunch, Swamiji actually made his way to me. "What is your name ?" he asked, adding, "You asked a good question. I did not reply to you because I wanted to talk to you..." And then he sat down next to me and said, "Your question is very logical and perhaps correct. However, you cannot understand these matters with logic. It is a matter of experiencing it. When you were just a day old, all you could see was a mass of light with some sounds emerging from this mass of light. Then slowly some figures started becoming clear...one of those figures fed you, made you go to sleep and rocked you when you cried...and as your pupils started functioning better you gave a name and shape to that being...your mother...your brilliant logic is the all enveloping light that you see, nothing is clear...slowly, your pupils will start digesting all that light and clarity will emerge...let it be...someday the clarity that is not born of logic will emerge..." Swamiji did not wait for my response, he just continued on.
The clarity has not emerged, some forty years later. I still struggle with logic and purposiveness. Some years ago, I asked a Vipassana teacher, "If you say that nothing is permanent and that everything just arises and dissolves what is it that reincarnates, if there is no soul..." In the mould of Swami Chinmayananda she looked at me and said, "Just continue your practice. It will all become clear..."
And, as I struggle with maintaining my fledgling practice in the midst of all these non-issues that thought creates, the reality of what the teacher told Allan Ginsberg comes through loud and clear, "...and this is the flotsam and jetsam that will keep pulling you back into the whirlpool..." For, as Krishna says at the end of Chapter 10 in the Bhagavad Gita
athava bahunai tena
kim jnatena tav'a'rjuna
vishtabhyaham idam sarvam
ekam sena's stitho jagat
Of what use is all this (intellectual) knowledge to you Arjuna ? All you need to know is that in a fraction of Myself I sustain the whole Universe...
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