People who
visit Himalayas for the first time or umpteenth time, claim this ‘I feel my ego
is reduced to nothing when I stand in front of the gigantic mountains or when I
sit for meditation (!) in front of the Ganges’. This is so hollow as their
claim. Why? I ask why, when you visited the nearby ocean or the mountain or
river you did not feel anything.
And for me,
the annihilation of the ego need not be gained by a trip. When we stand in
front of the big mass of people in the city or town, one comes from, do we not
feel anything. Everyone in the group wants to make a name for himself /
herself. And what greater folly can there be than this.
When people
come to me, I ask a simple question – whether they have any idea who Sri
Shankaracharya is (though I always refer to him as bhagavan bhashyakara, other
cannot remember this great ones name, leave alone the reference to him through
His life). If they are in the path of spirituality, they will claim to know
about him, claim? Let me explain, now we follow the path of this great one, nut
know nothing about him, and again claim to follow him J or L. Ask about His parents, or the place of His birth. Many a time, you
will receive a blank stare, displaying the great ignorance of what we ‘believe’
in. (for the ones who want to know His father’s name is Sri Shivaguru (son of
Sri Vidhyadhiraja) and mother’s name is Smt Aryambha (daughter of Sri
Magapandita).
Now tell me,
when we do not know or care to know somebody of such a great stature, is it not
utter foolishness to think that people will remember us. All our ego trips, to
establish a name of / for oneself, is nothing but making a greater fool of
ourselves. This I am not talking about the “naïve” householder but the “learned”
Sadhus too. What not they do to establish themselves in a greater pedestal than
the other famous swami, of equal or unequal stature. They establish Ashramas
and places for living for the disciples, for both one following the sadhu life and
the householder life. And run from pillar to post to expand or maintain it,
being afraid till the end of their life, about the security of even their stay
in the ashram, such a pity. And what happens after, there will be a power-play,
to usurp the power, by the trusted trustees or the disciple who has completely
surrendered himself to the Guru.
And even after
all this, who will remember him. At the most, the one who was able to wrest the
power, and mist often than not, scolding the founder of the ashram for every
problem, real or imaginary, he faces. And at the most, as the history of the
ashram, in the third generation. And after that, no one really cares or bothers
about him. At least, for the householder, in a family which performs the
shraaddha (ancestoral worship), they do remember till the great-grand father
stage.
But, we may
argue, we will be remembered by the people of our times, rightly said, but who
are they, they too fall in the same circle of people who are not note worthy in
the aftermath.
Smart Mauni
speaks “The bright side - If people forget great men, and if they forget us
too, we are great men”.
