Need and Greed: Gandhi and God
So, was Mohandas Gandhi, the Great Soul, God? Is or was he bigger than Satya Sai or Shirdi Sai? What did all of them teach? Was Gandhi well read? Did he practice what he taught?
Look at this episode, which you all would know…
A woman goes to Swami RamaKrishna, with her son; the boy is fond of sweets and forever hankering for more of them. RamaKrishna tells her to come back with the boy the next day. She does; Swami tells the boy that eating sweets is not good for health, etc. so stop it. The woman is confused: says, “Swami, I thought you would perform a miracle to save my son from this affliction/addiction to sweets; and you simply say – ‘Don’t eat sweets.’ You could have said that yesterday?”
Swami RamaKrishna, the story goes, said: “Well, lady, until yesterday, I was eating a lot of sweets too. I stopped since you came to me, and now I can tell your boy to stop eating sweets. Not otherwise!”
Can you believe that? Did Swami RamaKrishna actually say/do all of that? But, isn’t it a wonderful thing to illustrate the ‘do what you preach’ theory?
OK. When Jesus walked on water…
He was a sailor in a boat? The lake was frozen? Or was He walking on the plank that protruded into the lake, to which people gathered unto in boats: I was told that the high priests among jews were into that kind of preaching, and Jesus doing it (being none other than a son of a carpenter) was a big deal. So the whole nine yard about walking on water; I don’t know if Houdini did that, or Satya Sai even tried; but if the big man of Puttaparthi wants to, he could have produced jackfruit out of nowhere. Believe me: seeing is believing and believing is seeing. Ask bishop Berkeley. Or maybe I spelt something wrong; wow, do you care? (As in, “Dude, I don’t; and don’t bother me neither.”)
I go off the track again: in Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maghum has this to narrate: the protagonist of R-edge visits (let us assume Sri Ramana) and says: ‘Guru-ji, I heard this story about a great man in my travels across the country. It seems that an old sadguru wants to cross the river, and asks the boat man for a ride. The boat man asks for 2 anna’s; the sadguru does not have the money and the boat man says sorry, guruji, I cannot take you in my boat, if you cannot cough up the money. So the sadguru, apparently, walks across the river and gets to the other shore.” Maharshi Ramana says: “Yeah, what is the question you had in mind?” The westerner (visitor, likely Maghum himself) says: “Well, is it possible to walk on water? How does one go about doing that kind of stuff?” [You could call someone across the globe on your computer using something called Lync and headphones and mic, in case you did not know; so what?”
Bhagawan Ramana smiled and said: I assume you have come to India in quest of Nirvana, Mukti, and such silly stuff; in those terms, walking on water is as good as the 2 – anna’s that the boat man asked from the sadguru. Two anna’s will get you across the river as well as walking on water.
When Jesus walked on water, perhaps he was a sailor? [Leonard Cohen]
Need and greed
Gosh, oh Gandhi Almighty, forgive me, for I have swayed away from the topic too far. The thing is the long lecture I gave to my niece: in short, it is as follows…
“You have three watches; one titan fast track; but you tell me to get one more anyway, because you can have it. But desire/need is something different altogether: when you want something badly, you will kill (trying to get it) or die. And when you get what you want, whether it is two or three watches, you will not look at the 4th. You started out to get three, and you don’t care if there are 3 million; you wanted 3 and you still want those 3. Let others take the rest. That is desire. If you cannot get three, well, go on, fight to the finish and go get them – whatever it takes.”
I think that is stupid of me to say to a child of 13. I make up for it by writing the blog, which I hope will be read by a cross-section of people averaging more than 13 years.
Need and Greed: Gandhi and God
So, was Mohandas Gandhi, the Great Soul, God? Is or was he bigger than Satya Sai or Shirdi Sai? What did all of them teach? Was Gandhi well read? Did he practice what he taught?
Look at this episode, which you all would know…
A woman goes to Swami RamaKrishna, with her son; the boy is fond of sweets and forever hankering for more of them. RamaKrishna tells her to come back with the boy the next day. She does; Swami tells the boy that eating sweets is not good for health, etc. so stop it. The woman is confused: says, “Swami, I thought you would perform a miracle to save my son from this affliction/addiction to sweets; and you simply say – ‘Don’t eat sweets.’ You could have said that yesterday?”
Swami RamaKrishna, the story goes, said: “Well, lady, until yesterday, I was eating a lot of sweets too. I stopped since you came to me, and now I can tell your boy to stop eating sweets. Not otherwise!”
Can you believe that? Did Swami RamaKrishna actually say/do all of that? But, isn’t it a wonderful thing to illustrate the ‘do what you preach’ theory?
OK. When Jesus walked on water…
He was a sailor in a boat? The lake was frozen? Or was He walking on the plank that protruded into the lake, to which people gathered unto in boats: I was told that the high priests among jews were into that kind of preaching, and Jesus doing it (being none other than a son of a carpenter) was a big deal. So the whole nine yard about walking on water; I don’t know if Houdini did that, or Satya Sai even tried; but if the big man of Puttaparthi wants to, he could have produced jackfruit out of nowhere. Believe me: seeing is believing and believing is seeing. Ask bishop Berkeley. Or maybe I spelt something wrong; wow, do you care? (As in, “Dude, I don’t; and don’t bother me neither.”)
I go off the track again: in Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maghum has this to narrate: the protagonist of R-edge visits (let us assume Sri Ramana) and says: ‘Guru-ji, I heard this story about a great man in my travels across the country. It seems that an old sadguru wants to cross the river, and asks the boat man for a ride. The boat man asks for 2 anna’s; the sadguru does not have the money and the boat man says sorry, guruji, I cannot take you in my boat, if you cannot cough up the money. So the sadguru, apparently, walks across the river and gets to the other shore.” Maharshi Ramana says: “Yeah, what is the question you had in mind?” The westerner (visitor, likely Maghum himself) says: “Well, is it possible to walk on water? How does one go about doing that kind of stuff?” [You could call someone across the globe on your computer using something called Lync and headphones and mic, in case you did not know; so what?”
Bhagawan Ramana smiled and said: I assume you have come to India in quest of Nirvana, Mukti, and such silly stuff; in those terms, walking on water is as good as the 2 – anna’s that the boat man asked from the sadguru. Two anna’s will get you across the river as well as walking on water.
When Jesus walked on water, perhaps he was a sailor? [Leonard Cohen]
Need and greed
Gosh, oh Gandhi Almighty, forgive me, for I have swayed away from the topic too far. The thing is the long lecture I gave to my niece: in short, it is as follows…
“You have three watches; one titan fast track; but you tell me to get one more anyway, because you can have it. But desire/need is something different altogether: when you want something badly, you will kill (trying to get it) or die. And when you get what you want, whether it is two or three watches, you will not look at the 4th. You started out to get three, and you don’t care if there are 3 million; you wanted 3 and you still want those 3. Let others take the rest. That is desire. If you cannot get three, well, go on, fight to the finish and go get them – whatever it takes.”
I think that is stupid of me to say to a child of 13. I make up for it by writing the blog, which I hope will be read by a cross-section of people averaging more than 13 years.
