#SelfIsolationRants #delirium
Questioning the status quo and changing it has always been a way to bring in something new that will end up being status quo in the coming times. It is a wheel that we keep in inventing again and again. Every new generation thinks that it is the forerunner of all modern thoughts.
We conveniently forget that what is modern at this moment, becomes out of date the very next moment. More so in the current technology-connected world where we are bombarded with details, information every second about anything and everything that's publicly available even in the remote-but-connected locales of the world. Twitter timeline has a new feed every few seconds, Facebook's feed is an unending scroll of everything that's wanted and unwanted, Whatsapp doesn't know to sleep, personal as well as professional emails never stop. News, updates, updates on updates, debates, discussions, cancelling each other, labelling everyone with anything, incessant trolling are just a fraction of online things. I digress.
"I was told that Raama was a perfect human being. After hearing couple of speeches of someone and reading few articles (my grandfather was a Sanskrit pandit who wrote commentary on Ramayana) [as though that makes you an authority of Ramanaya], I cannot believe that someone who never had a mind of his own and always said 'I do something because dad said so', 'I do something because dharma says so', 'I do something because vedas says so' can ever be a perfect human being. He has no mind or thought of his own. He made Seeta jump into fire. He killed Vaali from behind a tree. How can he be perfect when I see so many flaws. Ramayana is not as perfect as I was told it is."
Someone's rant has ~ 300 comments at this moment, majority of which are hell bent on cancelling Sri Raama and Raamayana, because Raama and the story of Raamayana does not appeal to their 'modern' sensibilities.
I just hope that whoever ranted this in that online forum and others cancelling Ramayana, do not find himself in a corporate setting, let alone working under someone. I sincerely wish that person just works for herself or himself. Otherwise, she/he will always find themselves following the rules, procedures set by someone and will not be allowed to work the way their mind tells them to.
A corporation is guided by vision and mission that is setup by its founder, few decades back if not few centuries back. There are processes that are built in, protocols to be followed by everyone working in that company, starting from the person who secures the entry gates to the person who occupies the highest office. No one is above those rules and procedures. Any deviation is met with serious repercussions. Yes, there is freedom of thought, of expression but such freedom is still bound within the corporate framework. Heck! There are guidelines in place that says how many spaces should be between two paras of an email and how many feet apart workers should be when operating machinery. You cannot say 'muh life! muh way!' there. You will probably be showed the door if you drag this cancel culture too much into corporate.
"These reviews are useless. They made sense decades back when people were using punch cards to code. We are now in AI/ML world. Who needs PR reviews?" Said no engineer and continued there for long.
"These sales targets were set by someone sitting somewhere across the world. I do not care to meet those numbers. Muh life! Muh waay bro!" says no salesperson ever.
However, I read / heard comments on that are long these lines on most of the traditions.
'Why should I not wear chappals into a temple? God is everywhere no and I wear chappals everywhere. Why should temples be out of bounds for my chappals?'
'Why should I not wear torn leather jeans and perform a vratha? Which book says so?'
'What happens if I do not follow a certain 'tradition'? You trads should come out and see the world!'
'Why should I respect [parents/teachers/traditional gurus]?'
'Why should I follow the rules set by people who do not know that I exist?'
'My cat is like my son. Do you leave your son when going to some function. You dont' right. Same here. I cannot leave my cat kiddo at home. I will take it with me to the marriage.'
'I am the father-figure for my dog. Looks how lovingly she looks at me when I take it out for potty. She will come to Tirumala with me. What? Who are you to say no? Dog is Kaala Bhairava, who is kshetra paalaka for so many temples. Why can I not take my dog with me there?'
'My pigeons cannot live a day without me giving them food and water. What do you mean I cannot take them to this funeral? Did your <>smriti tell you that?'
'I bathe only once a week even if I am going to office. In these days where there are sanitizers and deodorants, why should I bath daily?'
'I am not religious but I am spiritual. I seek inner peace. I dont believe in puja. See, I meditate and my guru said that's all that I need to connect with the positive energy of cosmos. Yoga dude! Kriya yoga is the key! You dont need anything else.'
These questions/thoughts come mostly from people of one specific religion. And the problem is that the people with these thoughts do not leave the religion completely out of their mind. They try to refit some pieces of it into the boundaries of their echo chambers.
Sri Raama saying that 'let my father agree to this marriage and attend it; I will not act on this all by myself' has its own sense of aesthetics and respect towards someone who has spent their time and energy in your upbringing. Why would someone not want their loving parents to be with them before embarking the next stage of their life? What is wrong if they sought the approval? We see kids bringing their parents from across the continents to their graduation ceremonies. Why do you think they do that?
Reminds me of lines from some novel when a grandson asks his grandfather about what happens if a festival is not celebrated as it should - " If Sankranti is not celebrated, then nothing materialistic is lost. The harvest will still reach home; it will get sold and money will exchange hands. The beauty of such a festival is not only in harvest, but also in the fact that brothers, sisters, relatives who had to go elsewhere for their livelihoods find time to travel back to their own villages, spend time with one another, exchange joys and sorrows. That's where the beauty of the festival lies. If that tradition is not continued, that joy of life will also be lost."
If you do not respect or follow traditions, then those traditions do not lose their meaning or importance amongst their followers. The loss is on you. What will be slowly lost is the age-old wisdom in those traditions and the beauty of the life that those traditions bring in. And that, is a slippery slope.
Once traditions are cancelled, then so is the religion. After religion is cancelled, then we will see Lord Vinayaka become the Santa Clause like figure, Shiva reduced to a caricature, Vishnu a snake charmer, Brahma a old grandfather with super powers (Brahmastra, you know!), Krishna a womanizer, Draupadi a nymphomaniac. We have already reduced Bal Hanuman and Chota Bheem to 'cartoon' characters. After few generations, the temples will be reduced to museums, the idols which underwent praana pratistha lying under sun, covered with dust before the gates of rich/powerful, the puranas, itihasas succumbed into the main stream as fantasy films, if not totally forgotten, Vedas turned into one-pager PDFs.
Am I stretching this too much? Look around.
Greeks had so many great thinkers; their philosophy one of the best at their times - where are they now if not in museums and their greatest works read as fantasy literature, into 'made easy' concise PDFs? Entire Egyptian pantheon of Gods is reduced to characters in fantasy films; their cultural artifacts lie in museums. We know next to nothing of the interpretations of their rituals, of their actual thought process. All of that was lost in sands of time because their traditions got 'cancelled' either from within or due to external factors. Native Americans who once roamed freely all along the Americas, who lived with tight bonds with nature, who had their own traditions are now living in their 'reservations', generational identity and knowledge lost.
Keep an open mind but also read, understand your own itihasas, puranas and prasthana-traya. Learn the language in which they are written. In the current world, no learning is prohibited and unavailable if you have the heart to learn. Sri Raam showed how to live like a man, not like a God. His behavior, his thought process can be the guides to follow, if you understand him. If you are stuck at the popular media projects of Sita Agnipravesha, Vali vadha, then you are missing the forest while looking at trees.