A Khalil Gibran story – there were two wells in a city. One for the commoners, one for the wise men. One day a sorcerer poisoned the common man’s well. The folks after drinking the water, tore their clothes & went around the city like mad men. They saw the wise men well clad & mistook them to be mad ‘Hey let’s kill them. They are not like us.’ The wise men wanted to save their lives, rushed to the common man’s well and drank from it.
Don’t we also join the common man in feasting, joining meaningless associations and trying to be a part of the TRIBE?
The way to the other side of the river (madness) is to take an oath.
The Buddhists call it SILA, the 5 Precepts.
- Tell the truth
- No stealing
- No immoral conduct
- No intoxicants
- No killing
PLEASE NOTE: Challenge 1 (refer to the previous blog: https://ssfamilyfirst.com/phus-your-mind-challenge-2-18/ )
Challenge 2: Tell the Truth
As soon as the AYYAPPA mala, comes in contact with your chest, you are an ascetic. You have forgone all your attachments. You seek refuge in “Swamiye Saranam”.
You become authentic out of your own volition. AYYAPPA (the symbol) speaks through you.
You have given your word.
If you want to be inauthentic, throw away the Rosary.
My mentor, once told me, Shiva, “it is the image that matters. What you are is of no consequence.”
Bill Clinton, pronounced to the world, “I did not have sex with her”. Image of the act was more important than the act itself.
Volkswagen, the automobile giant had to resort to nefarious tactics to sell their car. How would each of its employees feel? Would they be able to tell their world that they worked in this company with gusto?
Weren’t they all part of this heinous act? Hasn’t the cookie crumbled?
Won’t they have to live with this shame life long?
Isn’t the world full of smoking mirrors, of images in the name of Branding?
How do we come out of this Bubble and see the world as it is?
The Ayyappa Challenge: GIVE YOUR WORD
Either I speak the truth, the unadulterated truth of who I am or shut up. How long can I live trapped in a Mirror? Let me break it and come out. What’s the point in gaining the world if you lose your own soul?
Guru Dutt would put it out as, ‘Ye Duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai? What is the point in winning over this world of smoking mirrors?
Step up, you belong to the land of Raja Harishchandra. It gives so much comfort in announcing to the world, how lousy you are.
Kantian, categorized imperative states that if a murderer comes looking for your friend, and you know where your friend is hiding, tell the murderer.
The Ayyappa Challenge gave me the permission to tell my wife, my mother, my daughter & even my father how lousy & pathetic I was. My staff and my students know it.
And that’s comforting to have the PHUS (refer to previous blog) come out.
Would you like to share your PHUS journey?
Would you like to take up Challenge 2?
This is Shiv signing off from S & S Family First. Build families to build the nation…
