Someone who was unknown to the village had been
attending the evening meetings of the old man for last three days, abruptly
intervened while the old man was explaining something to an old lady and said,
“I have been carefully listening to all what was being discussed here for the last
few days. I have been coming here to learn something new as I was told that the
people here knew many things that others never had any opportunity to know, but
I am thoroughly disappointed to note that the same stale stuff about the truth
and the God is being repeated in different words and in different contexts. Are
you not tired of the truth and the God?”
There
was a pin drop silence in the meeting for a while, to be immediately followed
by a commotion. The old man wanted to reply to the unknown gentleman, but he
felt helpless because all the faces had turned towards the outsider in a strong
disapproval, who had disrupted the meeting with his unusual question raised out
of turn, almost intruding into what was the matter of discussion. This commotion,
however, was temporary because the people of the village were not violent by
nature. An elderly villager spoke to the unknown person, “Sir, this is a
meeting that we hold on a daily basis for the benefit of those who live in this
village. The outsiders are also welcome, but they are not expected to cause any
disruption in the proceedings of the meeting. We do raise questions to clarify
our doubts. But, we never pass such comments that serve no purpose. My humble
suggestion is that if this meeting does not suit you, please do not attend it.
Now that you are here, you may sit here till the meeting lasts. I will request
our teacher to answer your question, in case he considers it fit to answer it.”
The
old man spoke thereafter and everybody listened to him carefully. “The fact is
that we in this village do not know enough about the truth and the God. If
one’s education is incomplete, he should never feel bored or tired while making
efforts to complete it. Every day we try to learn at least a bit more than what
we had known till previous day. On some days we are able to make some progress,
but, on other days we may only succeed, partially or wholly, in removing our
doubts about what we could not know properly and sufficiently. You are one from
us, Sir; you are also a human being like us. The worldly things, howsoever,
tiring, disenchanting, repetitive or damaging they may be to us, often
fascinate us. Here, in this village, we do not get recent newspapers. We get
them, in bunches of 15, the most recent being at least 10 days old. We never
experience the freshness of newspapers as the people living in cities might be
experiencing. In fact, repetitive character of news sufficiently exposes us to
all what is drab and filthy about worldly life. Why should our life be like
that? Why should we be deprived of all what is enthusiastic, regenerative and
wonderful about our lives? Apart from discussing many mundane issues relating
to our day to day life, we also discuss how we can make our lives more
meaningful for us. If the key concepts of the God and the truth need repetitive
investigation and experimentation for exploring as to how they relate to our
practical life, what is wrong with it? Further, if the glitter and glare of our
worldly life often blind us, why should we not turn our eyes away from the
blinding glow at least for an hour in a day and try to use our internal eyes
for striking a balance in our life? We the people living in this village indeed
do not get tired of repeating the words ‘the God’ and ‘the truth’ many times in
our daily meeting.
At
the end of the answer given by the old man, the unknown person had no words
left with him to continue the discussion. In fact, he was virtually stunned to
watch the unusual glow of satisfaction that had made the faces of the villagers
extraordinarily beautiful.
PROMOD KUMAR SHARMA
[The writer of this blog is also the author of “Mahatma A
Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]
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