Thursday, July 28, 2011

GOD in a Man (Reposted)


Hello Readers,

It looks like the debate about the dignity and integrity of Sri SatyaSaiBaba never ends. So it made me revive my earlier post and repost it. The treasure that has seen the light from swami’s yajur mandir has become the central topic of discussion. I want to make it clear that, there are so called god-men and god-women who exploit people monetarily, physically and sometimes mentally in the name of religion or spirituality. But as far as I know the devotees of Baba never complained of being exploited in any of the above ways or at least never moaned about spending money on their trips to Puttaparthi, which takes him out of the clan of fake commercial god men. When the question of the wealth comes, it would be appropriate to streamline those funds for further development and maintenance of Baba’s established organisations.

After the demise of Sri SatyaSaiBaba, there were many discussions about Gods,Demigods n God men. Some said he was God indeed and some said he was a God-man and many other names were also attributed to him after his death.  I was never his devotee when he was alive nor did I hate him for any damn reason or news. I knew people who followed him, worshiped him and adored him. I never tried to weigh his good n bad. I am neutral. It surprises me when people say and treat him like any other money looter in our society. We vote the corrupt politicians again and again, n ignore the scammers even if they directly loot the tax payers money. Why would we blame some one, to whom we never gave a penny? I would personally see him as a Robinhood. Take from the rich and give it to the poor. This is what he did in so called spiritual terms. Not all the rich love to donate their wealth to poor and needy. God man like Sri SatyaSaiBaba are believed to bless them with boons and so they stand in queues to touch his feet and donate money to his trust. The media says he gives out costly gifts to the rich n celebrities and distribute some vibhuti to ordinary devotees. Come on its sheer common sense people, the rich give so much so they do deserve those little gold chains n watches. But point to be noted is that, the hospitals, schools, university, and other orphan homes run by his trust are not for the rich folk. The people who receive these services are more from poorer classes and people in desperate need. So this should at least pacify those who say he is a cheater/looter. I visited one of the orphanage/old age home maintained by his trust recently during my India visit. I was very impressed by the services offered to the people there, discipline maintained there and the way they accept the donations was also very organised. And I have heard from people who visited the prashanthi nilayam in puttaparthi that it was an extremely pleasant and peaceful stay. Nobody complained of commercial attitude, even if they are not the devotees. If our well known temples have become completely commercialized, dont you think this is a much better place? Another interesting rather surprising observation I made was, our celebs who tweeted RIP Sri SatyaSaiBaba. They stated him as a God-man or Demi God or God and still add RIP? Please wake up people, if he is an eternal being, he is obviously in peace all the time. No matter alive or dead. Only ordinary mortals need wishes and prayers to rest in peace. Change your text celebs :D. Anyways I would only like to say, we may not adore him or worship him but let us not defame him anymore. Let us pay our tributes to the Godliness in this man.

Cheers
Vennela

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Live don't survive


Bonjour!

What is living? All of us have several different modest answers for this term. However, how many of us understood that the term doesn't appropriately apply to most of us? In one line I define Living as being contended at some point, seems very cliché but I am sure no one can disagree with that statement. Only very small percentage of us are in that state of being content or at least understanding the beauty of being content. Today's world tempts us to run the rat race. Our aims and aspirations are sky rocketing day by day. As generations change, it is obvious to witness evolution and development. But, in the name of development, we have shed the wisdom petals with which we were weaved naturally and remained nude allowing all sorts of temptations to invade and make us vulnerable to more desires. Do I sound like a Guru :D well, all those words of wisdom repeated might remind a preacher.  
When you get a chance to be alone, literally doing nothing, staring at stars, we tend to think about ourself n sometimes retrospect. This stage of retrospection happens to all of us at some point of time. The sooner we experience, the better we evolve. Only very few of us dare to welcome this stage, because when we precisely know the consequences of this realisation, our vulnerable state will never want us to wear this armour to shield off the so called "flow". I think, that this "flow" term has been coined to represent the shameless acceptance of the monotonous lifestyles of the newer generation who simply admit '' well, what's wrong? I am going with the flow" Now should we encourage this trend? Is it really good? Or are we so thick skinned that we did not realise that we lost track already.  
In this “flow” trend, the metropolitan crowd have a special excuse code called "busy with work" for everything they miss, sometimes this everything also includes life. In the case of couples, it’s even more common, both of them work, they hardly get to see each other, earn great savings, with great aims to build home at a very young age, buy expensive cars and trip the world before they retire. Before they realise the "flow" pushes them far away. When we crave for an uncertain tomorrow and forget the certain today, we are definitely not living today. What is the point of missing an auspicious today for an unknown tomorrow? If we think that all our efforts today will leave comforts for a retired life, we are missing a point there. After retirement, one would crave for solitude not comforts. One may not want to carry debts but one may also not want to carry heaps of money to avoid the fight for heirs. When we sit back and relax after retirement and regret about not doing things that we really wanted to do, it doesn’t bring back the lapsed time. That time is to relish the beauty of one's journey not to regret. If this trend continues, how many of us will relish this journey? Even now, how many of us question ourselves, am I living or merely surviving? Once the question asked, we get clear answers and simple solutions to lead life in a better way. 
Living is enjoying the smallest pleasures that life has gifted us and being able to appreciate the blessings we have and sharing the blessings to those who are not as gifted as us. As they say, when we share happiness it doubles, so is it with blessings. Life is meant to be lived happily. n Happiness doesn’t lie in material comforts but merely lies n amplifies in being human.
So let’s stop running n start living!
Read this somewhere: Today's world  Our phone are wireless, Cooking is fireless, Food is fatless, Youth are jobless, Leaders are shameless, Relations are meaningless, Attitude is careless, Feelings are heartless, Education is valueless, But still our desires are "Endless".

cheers

Vennela