Don't disagree at all. But I was never in the popularity race in the first place. Popularity is a compromise of principle. A populist manifesto is, almost always, a compromise manifesto. The spiritual path is a single-lane street, at the end of which you are bound to shed your vote-bank. The aspirant aspires for the life beyond the street, rather than the life on the high street.
Not incidentally, our ex-convenor, Bharat 'The Vene' Pally mentioned a variant to the Sai Trinity, which, although a joke, is taken with seriousness by many people in our joint. Regarding the variant, you might want to ask him yourself!
Footnote: Prajeen is still very right. I am planning to resign from professional sarcasm, now that Rajesh is groomed and ready to take on from where I left off! Rajesh, are you reading this?!
Well said Praveen -you were never in the race of popularity, position, power or pelf!
ReplyDeleteBuddha was asked- What did you gain from Nirvana
His answer- "I gained nothing.... In fact I lost everything.
Spirituality is the only race where the largest loser is the biggest winner"!!
In an environment where sychophancy is the standard even straight talk can be construed as sarcasm
ReplyDeleteExample on the Sports Day, I remarked in front of two gentlemen "Whatever team Swamy has put us in - Sathya, Dharma, Shanti, Prema, Swamy wants us to know that that value is currently missing in our lives!!" One gentleman, who was just a devotee, took some time and laughed it off heartily. The other an active worker took some time but looked as though he did not hear me. It seemed clearly as though he was offended
"Dont worry Sir", I told him " I was only joking". "In any case", I continued, "I was nominated in one team, now I am transferred on to an another- So Swamy perhaps finds two values missing in my life" The active worker still did find it amusing!!
On second thoughts, what I said above to both these gentlemen was perhaps wrong. Being Sarcastic can hurt people. We can do that only with those who have high self esteem and can also accept critiscm objectively.
So if we reword prajeen's statement- If you hurt people, who in general cannot accept criticism easily (and there are tons in our fraternity), you are bound to become unpopular- If you dont hurt ....it is acceptable not to be popular!
Goal to Prajeen
Scoreline Prajeen 1 Praveen 0
Let us see if Praveen's ego is capable of handling this!
No contention on that! It is just that old habits die violent deaths. So, it will take me a while. Interestingly, I just received the weekly AOL Thought for the Day yesterday, and Sri Sri Sri talks about how much beneficial it is to get humiliated!
ReplyDelete