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Hemingway and the Yogi


Ernest Hemingway, Nobel laureate in literature, loved life passionately.  He loved adventure and relished the big game safaris in Africa as much as sailing through the dangers in the ocean or even punching the opponent in amateur boxing. More so, he trusted people just to know if they were trustworthy.  Many of the adventures he embraced had the potential to kill him.  He survived two plane crashes during his last safari in Africa and read with considerable amusement the obituaries that appeared in the morning’s newspapers which had presumed his death.

The Yogi, on the other hand, has no passions by profession.  He is supposed to be dispassionate.  He has conquered emotions and passions.  Rig Veda says that the whole spectrum of human passions ranging from enthusiasm and creativity to depression and agony, from the heights of spiritual bliss to the heaviness of earth-bound labour, belongs to the rank and file.  The Yogi has transcended these contrary forces. 

Between the extreme passion of Hemingway and the equally extreme dispassion of the Yogi, there exist an infinite variety of possibilities which we the ordinary mortals embrace.  A bit of adventure here and a bit of spirituality there is good enough for us.  We can extend the bits occasionally to protracted entertainments too, maybe in the mountains or in the temples.  We can be both passionate and dispassionate, as demanded by the occasion.  We can be secular and religious at the same time.  That’s why we are normal human beings.  Albert Einstein wondered many times, looking at people like us, whether he was crazy or the other people (that is, we) were.  

Hemingway was crazy anyway and his passions took his life in the end.  The Yogi may live a hundred years though I will never understand for what.  What’s the use of living like a vegetable even if you can exist for a hundred years?  I’d rather have much shorter life filled with joys and passions.  That’s my personal view: one of the infinite varieties of possibilities that lie between Hemingway and the Yogi.  But I love those Yogis who go around entertaining the world with passionately undulating bellies and selling us everything from fairness creams to Ayurvedic Soanpapdi.  They entertain us with a difference.



Comments

  1. Roohi BhatnagarFebruary 21, 2017 at 9:22 AM

    Hihihi, last line amused me.. Interesting post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 21, 2017 at 9:10 PM

      Though the Yogi is supposed to be dispassionate, today's yogis are just the opposite: very passionate, even more so than us ordinary mortals :)

      Delete
  2. KalpanaFebruary 21, 2017 at 3:03 PM

    Hemingway was not crazy. I'm quite a big fan of his writing, if not of his lifestyle - his extreme sexism towards women and his desire to hunt. Can't say I agree with yogis either - bleached of feeling. What I'm curious about is your desire to juxtapose the two.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 21, 2017 at 9:13 PM

      Hemingway's insanity led him to commit suicide. I mentioned Einstein's view on sanity precisely to imply that sanity is a relative thing: by conventional standards Hemingway was not normal.

      It is the Rig Veda and other such scriptures that bleach the yogi, not me. It's not my personal view. My personal view is that our yogis are worse than us when it comes to greed, jealousy, craftiness, political chicanery, sensuality, deception... an endless list.

      I didn't juxtapose the two: I contrasted them, put them at the two ends of the passion-dispassion continuum.

      Delete
  3. DebashreeFebruary 22, 2017 at 11:38 AM

    I am practicing meditation offlate and also reading some books on spirituality and power of subconscious mind. You may have a look at Lost and found in Ranthambore, available in Amazon kindle version, you may like it

    ReplyDelete
  4. Allwyn ThanarajFebruary 22, 2017 at 11:58 PM

    What’s the use of living like a vegetable even if you can exist for a hundred years?
    This has raised a million questions within me.. Great article

    ReplyDelete

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