So when are you joining the AOL ?, an office colleague asked. A year ago, I would have translated the acronym to be America OnLine. However, as I knew this person and what he is into and based on a discussion before, I knew he was talking about Shri Shri Ravi Shankar’s “Art of Living”.
Not interested, thanks, I said. Trying my best not to give him a piece of my mind.
“How about Baba Ramdev’s discourses then? They are now available on CDs and MP3 s and now he has started visiting Dubai also” , he persisted.
Why do you want me to do that?, I asked.
“Well aren’t you into these things? Your blog has articles about, destiny, God, life journey. Karma etc so you should join them”.
Discretion being the better part of valour, I decided to withdraw by pretending I had some urgent business to finish and we can discuss this later. Back in my room, I decided to make my stand clear on these issues to the world wide web. So here it is. I hope this pest (and several others that I know) read this blog piece so that they do not pester me again with why I should listen to the Babas and Gurus.
We are each on our own personal evolutionary path, and we choose experiences that will help us with this evolution. Years ago in college I read a book by a psychotherapist called Sheldon Kopp titled _”If you meet the Budha on the road, Kill Him”. To know more about the book, click the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/Meet-Buddha-Pilgrimage-Psychotherapy-Patients/dp/0553278320/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205823102&sr=1-1
This book is very Zen and if you aren't familiar with Zen, this is as good a place as any to get an introduction to it. If you cannot be bothered with this (like my wife), then the book’s message (written in 1972!!) is that Killing the Buddha is looking deeply within ourselves, accepting our limitations, our attributes, and everything in between. We are the experts in the journey of our own lives. No one else is. The back cover of the book says: "The most important thing that each man must learn is that no one else can teach him." Very true. (I actually like this line because it then justifies all those moments when I didn’t listen to my teachers at school !!) Yes, your teachers (fellow journeyers on the life path) can give you real life examples and experiences, but in the end the conclusion has to come from your experiences. Self improvement best comes from experiences and the lessons we learn from those experiences. Lessons received without experiences are incomplete. You can have guides BUT avoid guides that force a path down your throat. Choose guides that narrow down the choice of paths for you and let you decide which one is best (need not be right) for you.
Like Siddharth, the character of Herman Hesse’s novel, don’t be a follower of any but your own soul. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending down to hear answers from the river. The book parallels the life of Buddha and seems to argue that lessons of this sort cannot be taught but come from one's own struggle to find truth. Its the struggle that is more important. Siddhartha embraces suffering and learning in an active and uncynical attempt to find wisdom. For all you know the Guru you are looking for help is himself a struggler but appears not to be so? You are better off trusting yourself. Again, remember, like Siddhartha, sometimes you need to travel down a wrong path to realize what is wrong about the path in order to get on the right path
Not interested, thanks, I said. Trying my best not to give him a piece of my mind.
“How about Baba Ramdev’s discourses then? They are now available on CDs and MP3 s and now he has started visiting Dubai also” , he persisted.
Why do you want me to do that?, I asked.
“Well aren’t you into these things? Your blog has articles about, destiny, God, life journey. Karma etc so you should join them”.
Discretion being the better part of valour, I decided to withdraw by pretending I had some urgent business to finish and we can discuss this later. Back in my room, I decided to make my stand clear on these issues to the world wide web. So here it is. I hope this pest (and several others that I know) read this blog piece so that they do not pester me again with why I should listen to the Babas and Gurus.
We are each on our own personal evolutionary path, and we choose experiences that will help us with this evolution. Years ago in college I read a book by a psychotherapist called Sheldon Kopp titled _”If you meet the Budha on the road, Kill Him”. To know more about the book, click the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/Meet-Buddha-Pilgrimage-Psychotherapy-Patients/dp/0553278320/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205823102&sr=1-1
This book is very Zen and if you aren't familiar with Zen, this is as good a place as any to get an introduction to it. If you cannot be bothered with this (like my wife), then the book’s message (written in 1972!!) is that Killing the Buddha is looking deeply within ourselves, accepting our limitations, our attributes, and everything in between. We are the experts in the journey of our own lives. No one else is. The back cover of the book says: "The most important thing that each man must learn is that no one else can teach him." Very true. (I actually like this line because it then justifies all those moments when I didn’t listen to my teachers at school !!) Yes, your teachers (fellow journeyers on the life path) can give you real life examples and experiences, but in the end the conclusion has to come from your experiences. Self improvement best comes from experiences and the lessons we learn from those experiences. Lessons received without experiences are incomplete. You can have guides BUT avoid guides that force a path down your throat. Choose guides that narrow down the choice of paths for you and let you decide which one is best (need not be right) for you.
Like Siddharth, the character of Herman Hesse’s novel, don’t be a follower of any but your own soul. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending down to hear answers from the river. The book parallels the life of Buddha and seems to argue that lessons of this sort cannot be taught but come from one's own struggle to find truth. Its the struggle that is more important. Siddhartha embraces suffering and learning in an active and uncynical attempt to find wisdom. For all you know the Guru you are looking for help is himself a struggler but appears not to be so? You are better off trusting yourself. Again, remember, like Siddhartha, sometimes you need to travel down a wrong path to realize what is wrong about the path in order to get on the right path
Look inside yourself for answers. If you need Baba Ramdev and AOL to assist you as facilitators, then yes please go ahead but in the end you should have the courage, the desire, and the thrill of looking inside and discovering yourself. Facing yourself is the most difficult task of all because you can fool the whole world but you cannot fool yourself. No Babas, Gurus, therapists or any priest will or can do that for you – ie. Look inside you. They can be instruments and tools for your self discovery but nothing more. Even if you get things wrong, you are better off making your own mistakes and learning from them. Remember how a child learns to walk? – yes, by falling first of course and then learning how not to fall based on the experience of falling.
Don’t take the easy way out. You have to confront yourself one day……isn’t that the reason why you exist? So do yourself a favour, get off the Guru’s couch and at the same time get the Guru (therapist) off the pedestal. Liberate yourself from all Babas and Gurus, look inside, find yourself and then look up ….you will find a path that has your name written on it and keep walking until you reach your destiny at the end of it. Walk on anyone else’s path and you will reach some one else’s destiny, not your own. You are supposed to struggle, you are just another struggling human. If you do not struggle you will not learn to walk !! It is more important to be struggling to walk in your own path rather than walking tall on someone else’s life path.
Do it yourself, do it right but just do it. Kill the Buddha and discover yourself.
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