Rum, Rumi and Rumination

The first quarter of the year is a time for introspection. In this social media age you are swamped with unsolicited gyan, be it Whatsapp or facebook. Virtually every other person is a guru and guru production is practically a cottage industry today in India.

Wonder where the Rumis, the Mahatriyas, the Sri Sris and the Sadhgurus were when I was growing up. It would have helped me attain nirvana and bring about a spiritual awakening in me. I did have my fair share of spiritual awakening (not sure if it really woke me up). Osho and Maharishi were my favourites. My spiritual awakening was limited to listening to Osho discourses on audio cassette players , attending Transcendental Meditation courses of the Maharishi and reading a couple of books on Sufism, Taoism and Zen Philosophy, while actively practising the religious beliefs I was born into. This gave me a balanced outlook to life or so I believe.

Unfortunately I grew up in a period; you were branded a prodigal pariah if you followed Osho or a Maharishi. I had to even lie to my parents to attend an initiation session of Transcendental Meditation, for which I had to buy, Flowers, Coconut other offerings that made the ‘dakshana’ , in spite of them being the most liberal of parents. As you see, my pursuit of gyan did not come easy.

These are days you see words of wisdom dished all around, and rarely get to see people of wisdom. You wake up to motivational messages wishing you a great day if you stay positive or go to bed with messages of wonderful dreams and promises of a better dawn that makes you forget that none of the morning messages came true. The gurus tell you things you knew all along which you always considered trivial. Suddenly the same stuff has more gravity when spoken by a guru and would bring about a spiritual awakening in you. ‘Wake up in the morning, close your eyes and hold your wife’s hands’. Now, if I said that, you would brand me a moron. Imagine the same being narrated by a guru in a nasal tone or a deep hoarse voice, with an unruly facial hair, clad in, white, saffron or a green robe. There is a tectonic shift in the effect that the very same statement has on you.

Finally when a Sri Sri proclaims an event on teaching you the nuances of how to live, it becomes an event where you have 3.5 Million people flocking to the venue. I believe you don’t need a white / Saffron/ green robe (My apologies if I have missed out other colours, it was not intentional or discriminatory to the other colour) and a black beard (since this feature is a common factor I’m happy) to teach the art of living. One can learn it from an unemployed educated youth wearing a trouser worn out at its helms and sporting a soiled white shirt, or from a rickshaw puller sporting a colourful lungi and a well ventilated vest. You my friends,can learn the art of living from the above gentlemen drawn from different strata of the society. Lend a ear to their hardships, and I bet you end up learning more than any of the discourses you may listen to by the so called acclaimed self-proclaimed gurus.

Take a deep breath and feel the moment, love a fellow human irrespective of his cast, creed and religion and be at peace with what you have, voila you have already mastered the art of living.

Living is not an art but a conglomeration of intuitive actions that takes you through to the next minute of your life, the day you understand that, you are an artist who has mastered how to live.

You might wonder why the title made no sense. I simply used Rum to Ruminate on Rumi.

Gurus come and go!!! Be your own guru!