Its been awhile since I last blogged. As I've told some, I lacked inspiration. My life was routine, mundane, with few moments that really required attention. While the events at the Rainforest World Music Festival were memorable, I've pretty much continued to lifelessly in deep thought.
I've recently been going to the Gurudwara (Sikh Temple) a lot as a very auspicious celebration, the anniversary of the birth of the 7th Guru.
During a sermon, the speaker spoke of a person called Principal Gangga Singh from some school in Mumbai. He related a story to us.
"In Mumbai, to cross the river, rafts were used. Hence at the river bank, it is common to see boatmen waiting to transport people across. One day, at dusk, a boatman anchored his raft to the jetty. He left soon after as it was the end of a long day's work. After he left 7 men arrived at the river bank after a session of binge drinking. As it was already dusk, there were no boatmen on duty at that moment. They saw the raft lying at the jetty and hopped on after a brief discussion as they concluded how hard could it be, seeing that the oars were there, and having 7 men, they could easily tick turns to paddle to the other side. And so they began paddling and paddling, really vigorously and continuously did so until the sun rose. Dawn had arrived and they had sobered up a little. They later realised that they had paddled continously but hadn't moved an inch. How was this possible? asked one of them. The later realised that the raft was still tied to the jetty and so it didn't budge. "
On hearing this a few laughs were heard. Principal Gangga then asked, what is the moral of this story?
There was no answer and so the principal answered himself.
"There are some of us who're always studying, but never do well. there are others who barely glance the books and end up scoring. It all depends on who you are. The one who sees the anchor, or the one who sees the oar. The one who sees the oar gets to work, without ever realising whats holding him back. The one who sees the anchor lets go of it and at times can even follow the currents and will get to his destination. Don't ever underestimate those who don't work hard, always look at a broader perspective, analyze your shortcomings and reduce the occurance of mistakes by simple deductive knowledge and critical thinking. He concluded by telling his class to not bother taking down notes, rather told them to take note of what was going on.
The speaker then said, another moral of the story was, religion.
One needs to understand the difference between being spiritual in religion or being active in religion.
One who's active need not be spiritual and vice versa.
An example i would provide you of an active person would be one who goes to the place of worship everyday, an evangelist who preaches religion, and one who has vast knowledge about religion. I personally fall in this category somewhat. We are the paddlers.
A spiritual person is one who need not be active, but lives by religion. Practices his faith in his life. An example would be obeying the Sabbath on Sundays in the Christian Faith.
Gandhi once said, "If all Christians acted like Christ, the whole world would be Christian."
I apologize to those of the Christian faith who find my example offensive but it was I feel the most easily understood example. Majority of us who claim to be religious, would fall in the active category. Constantly performing duties in the name of religion, while commiting numerous sins along the way. In the Sikh Temple, food is commonly served after a sermon. An example of one who commits sins while performing duties in the name of religion would be one who serves food, but gets into an argument with someone who doesn't queue up to collect the food. Another example is one who'd cook the food, but later scold another person for adding too much salt to it. It does seem so superficial, but in actual truth, we lack the moral values that are supposed to be instilled by religion while commiting religious service. Gandhi's statement reminded me of a friend of mine, a Protestant, who once wore a band saying WWJD, "What Would Jesus Do" and he claimed it helped him think twice about doing something as he'd rethink his intentions and actions.
He ended the sermon saying you need to remember that everyone on earth who aren't atheists (excluding agnosts) are of one Dharm (Path of Righteousness) - Of one belief, believe in a superior energy/being/Lord. We are only different by ways of religion. He then told us a story of a prince who bought an elephant. He then asked 4 blind men to examine the elephant to describe what an elephant looked like. One man holding the tusks felt the elephant was smooth and curved, another holding an ear said it was rough and full of wrinkles, another who held the tail said its bushy, hairy and long, and finally one who held a leg said its short stubby and hard. This led to an argument in which everyone claimed the other was wrong.
And although all of them were describing the same object, they gave many separate descriptions and argued. The prince later smiled. Each blind man represented a religion, and the elephant represented God. And although our object of admiration was the same, our perspectives differed as we cannot see Him although He is often felt. And this difference alone divides the world and has been the reason for most of the wars on earth taking place.
Another sermon I heard not too long ago claimed religions were like containers. As the Supreme Being rained every container was filled. In essence the rain water is the same, but it took on a new shape in their containers. Some of the water didn't land in containers (agnosts). And so one does not need to have a container (religion) to get wet (spiritual). But having a container eases the collection of the water (understanding of the Primal Being). We have different containers. We all aim to get wet. Some of us chose not to have containers. He concluded by saying in essence we're like rivers that take different routes but aim to flow along one path to the sea(Lord). some rivers are thicker (Religions with more followers) and some are thinner ( less followers) but the aim of every river is to flow into the sea (be united with our Maker).
I once shared this tale with a someone. And today I share it with everyone. I apologize if I sounded like I was propogating a religion, because my intentions were to create an awareness of how similar we are, amidst our subtle differences. It was in school when religious talks were something I'd avoid as it became a 'Mine is better than yours' argument.
Anyway, the Sunday School talk ends there. I wish to inform everyone who has my number to not message me without mentioning your name for my phone's LCD got spoilt and so I got a new phone but only 100 Numbers were saved into the SIM card. So I've lost quite a number of contacts. Please don't get offended if a message you send is replied with a who's this.
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