Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Importance of dying as a man
Recently, we read that the 57-year-old chief of Flextronics Software, Arun Kumar, passed away while on a trip to America. There were shock waves all around. People could pay tributes to him at online web sites. There were a quite a few people, who knew about him and his work, who paid rich tributes to that man. This event made me remember one line that our Hon. President, Dr. Abdul Kalam had once said: “How do you want the World to remember you, when you are not there any more?” In the Mahabharata, Vyaasa talks of an event, when all the five Pandavas, while in exile and wandering in the forest, were passing through a certain place which was haunted by a spirit. They were all thirsty and one by one, from Sahadev onwards, whoever drank water from the lake without answering the spirit’s queries, fainted. Till, at last, Yudhishthira himself came in search of water and found all his four brothers lying on the ground. Not realising what had happened to them, he also stepped in to the lake and he heard the spirit’s voice which dared him to drink the water before answering his questions. He was a patient man. So he started answering the questions. There were almost 127 questions that he asked and which Yudhishthira had answered beautifully, all compiled under the category called – Yaksh Prashna. In one of the questions, the spirit asks – what is the greatest surprise in this world? “That in this mortal world, every human being behaves as if he is immortal and will never die,” said Yudhishthira. This is probably the essence of all spiritualism. In its absence, I’m totally defenceless. I cannot defend and justify my actions. In such a situation, whatever responses are triggered, they almost symbolise the essence of that personality. Continued in comments......
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I know, it is the most ruthless way of judging a person, but that is the way I should measure all my actions and only then I can ensure that I transform myself and guide my actions more positively. In a society, where the fundamentals had been the spiritual way of life; we have come to a juncture when we need to ask – is it important to lead an austere life? This reflects that the way we look at the social values are undergoing a change and, at such a juncture we have to be extremely careful. There are also many of those who ask: “If we had such a strong value system, and such strong fundamentals of spirituality, then why do we have such a poor state of affairs and such high rate of corruption today?” Very true, we have these problems. Yet still it is true that if we didn’t have such an embedded value system, we would have probably disintegrated much faster. True, we don’t have a strong check on our leadership and they are more corrupt than our mind can even permit us to think, yet, still it is true that since we have a strong value system, there are people who emerge from most unexpected quarters, more positive than we could have thought, and reinforcing our commitment and conviction to these values and the fact that they are not outdated yet.
Simply speaking, does it also mean that it is wrong to have affluence and to have a comfortable life? No. Money in its own right is neither good, nor bad nor ugly. It is the mental framework and the perception that adds colour to it. While it is true that purity and poverty have become synonymous in our mind, for certain images that we have created, yet, it is equally important that we understand that there is a very strong need to discriminate between need, luxury and indulgence. It is not wrong to have a comfortable life but when a whole state (like Madhya Pradesh) is suffering from a high degree of child malnutrition, (officially it has been accepted that the state infrastructure is failing) does my conscience allow me to keep my eyes closed? Just take a look at these words - Gandhiji’s strikingly simple criterion was that every action proposed or contemplated, should in its implementation stage wipe the tears of a poor and downtrodden person... - says Dr Abdul Kalam in his book – India 2020. Can I still allow myself to get into the zone of indulgence and stay immune to these facts of life? Someone can say, “It is not my responsibility if the system fails to deliver?” I say: “Yes it is. It is very much my responsibility if the system fails to deliver, because if my house is not on fire, it doesn’t mean that my house will not be on fire, since there is already one house on my street that is on fire and it can spread to my house if I don’t take initiative to douse it.” If this attitude been there, then the whole of Mumbai wash out wouldn’t have repeated this year. Affluence is good, but that shouldn’t be the end reason of my growth process. What is the vision for my life? Where does my aspiration lead me to? A vision, in fact, is not a feasibility report, just as it cannot be a mere slogan or a play of words....it is a strong conviction to achieve that what is dreamt for, at all cost. And it is this drive that takes us beyond the performance level that was humanely feasible. It is only then that we say that we have achieved the Unachievable- in a way touched the sky. If this driving force is not there, there can never remain a guiding element throughout our life. Without that, there might be moments of success and failures as is normal, there might be situations when I start prospering and attain affluence, but all this will never make me lose my balance. The view will never get clouded. Only then can I justify good usage of the resources that come my way and can sustain an environment that will ensure good values in the generation that come next.
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