Skip to main content

Detachment


Holy men are detached from everything.  Attachment is a sin that arises from ignorance.  Ignorance prevents us from attaining the realisation that everything on the earth is maya, illusion. Ordinary mortals live in illusion.  So they are attached.  Attached to their family.  To money.  Possessions. 

Holy men are not attached to anything.  That’s why they don’t even marry.  They are not attached to people. 

But, as some jester said, even holy men have one flaw or another.  Otherwise they wouldn’t be just holy; they would be gods.

We don’t know if the jester is entirely right.  The jester is just an ordinary mortal.  And he is making a judgment about a mortal many times greater than him.  If a man many times greater has at least one flaw, if not more, then how many flaws does an ordinary mortal like the jester suffer from?  Simple logic makes us suspect the jester’s claim.  He being an ordinary mortal suffers from many flaws.  Therefore his logic must suffer from many flaws.  Corollary: The Baba may not have any flaw at all. QED.  My faith is very logical, you see. 

The jester said that Anantananda Baba, by virtue of being a man, must have at least one flaw. 

“What’s the flaw?” I asked.

“His attachment to land,” answered the jester.  Wherever Anantananda Baba fancies to set up an ashram he procures land by hook or by crook.

“He’s trying to serve the people by setting up his ashram,” I said.  “The Baba sets up ashram, convenes Satsangs, preaches spirituality and thus ensures moksha for the people after death.”

“But  he swindles people in order to procure the land he fancies,” protested the jester.  “The Baba uses unfair methods to get the land.” 

The Baba had recently bought acres of land near the jester’s house by evicting people using political clout.  In the name of development.  The people were promised a lot of alternatives.  But one the deed was settled, the Baba forgot his promises as usual.  Not entirely.  You would get something provided you became his devotee.

The jester became a devotee to see what he could get in addition to the moksha which he would surely get after death thanks to the Baba.  What about the life before death?

The jester listened to the homily during the very first Satsang convened in the newly acquired plot of land.  

The Baba dished out the recipe of happiness to his devotees very generously.  Do you want to be happy, my children?  He began.  It is so easy to be happy.  Let me give you the keys to happiness.  The first key, you must let go what is gone.  It may be your job, your land, your crops, anything.  Let go what’s gone.  That’s the first key.

And here’s the second key.  Be grateful for what remains.  Everything is never taken away from you.  Something always remains.  Your health.  Your willingness to work.  Your devotion to your guru.  Be grateful. 

Happiness is so easy to attain.  There’s only one more key.  Just one more.  And that is: look forward to what awaits you.  Don’t just look.  Achieve it.  Work for it. 

The jester laughed as he gave me the keys to happiness.  “You work and don’t complain.  The Baba will come and snatch your work at the right time.  You will get moksha in the next life. Hahaha...”

Source: Matheikal's Garden
The bright spot in the background is the moon
I took the keys seriously.  And planted some saplings in my garden.  Here’s one of them.  I’m at the peak of happiness whenever I look at each plant.  The Baba is right.

“Wait,” says the jester.  “You are getting attached to your garden.  One day the Baba will come to teach you detachment and deliver you from maya.”


PS. This post was inspired by a Whatsapp message I received this morning from an ex-colleague.  The three keys of happiness were given by him. Thanks, friend.  I know you are no jester.  Sorry for taking that liberty for the sake of fiction.  Fiction?


Comments

  1. This one should become the thirty fourth story of your book. Perhaps you have more of such in your satchel :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Certain occasions inspire my stories. Most of the stories in that anthology were inspired by a Baba and his people indirectly mostly. So is this one. And many more in the future probably especially since the Baba has an ashram in Kochi too!

      Delete
  2. The world would indeed be a happier place, if we just had a God and no godmen!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Replies
    1. There are many who are already practising it. I learnt from them 😊

      Delete
  4. That a very good satire which is the reality prevailing all around. We are thugged by godmen time and again, still don't open our eyes and see the truth, the bare one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have personal experience and that is why the conviction.

      Delete
  5. Punch after punch in the faces that earn them by deeds. Though I can't fully disagree with the keys.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I too don't disagree with the keys. That's why I had to create fiction.

      Delete
  6. I love to read ur knowledgeable articles sir,its too good.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Face of the Faceless

“When you choose to fight for truth and justice, you will have to face serious threats.” Sister Rani Maria, the protagonist of the movie, is counselled by her mother in a letter. Face of the Faceless is a movie that shows how serious those threats are. This movie is a biopic. It shows us the life of a Catholic nun who dedicated her life to serve some Adivasis of Madhya Pradesh [MP] and ended up as a martyr. If it were not a real story, this movie would have been an absolute flop. Since it is the real story of not only a nun but also the impoverished and terribly exploited Adivasis in a particular village of MP, it keeps you engrossed. It is a sad movie, right from the beginning to the end. It is a story of the good versus evil, the powerless versus the powerful, the heroic versus the villainous, the divine versus the diabolic. Having said that, I must hasten to add one conspicuous fact: the movie does not ever present Christianity or its religious practices as the only right way

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart

All the light we cannot see

Book Review Title: All the light we cannot see Author: Anthony Doerr Publisher: Fourth Estate, London, 2014 Pages: 531 What we call light is just a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most part of the electromagnetic spectrum remains beyond ordinary human perception. Such is human life too: so many of its shades remain beyond our ordinary perception and understanding. Anthony Doerr’s novel, All the light we cannot see , unravels for us some of the mysterious shades of human life. Marie-Laure LeBlanc leaves Paris with her father Daniel who is entrusted with the task of carrying a rare diamond, Sea of Flames , to safe custody when the second world war breaks out. The National Museum of Natural History, Paris, has made three counterfeit diamonds of the Sea of Flames. Four men are assigned the task of carrying each of these diamonds to four different destinations. None of them knows whether they are carrying the original diamond or the counterfeit. Marie-Laure a