On Deaf Ears

In the final chapter of his famous book, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Gandhiji ends with a moving and thought-provoking farewell indeed.

"Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self- purification; without self- purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one's surroundings.

But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experience of the dormant passions lying hidden with in me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility."

Makes me wonder : We call him the Father of the Nation, but how much of Gandhiji's precepts do we actually even think about putting into practice? Do we ever even make the slightest effort towards trying to reach "the farthest limit of humility"?

Based on my experiences, specially for the last seven years or so, I would say that we do not. We pay lip service to the Father of our nation, and are possibly committing a far greater mistake than those who do not agree with his teachings, or are ignorant of them.

As your bright and tiny spark

Picture two figures, huddled on a less-travelled path, with the sky wrapped around them like a blue-black blanket lined by the fire of the setting sun. Talking; sometimes profoundly, sometimes desultorily. Soon it turns into inky blackness, and the stars come out, and twinkle merrily overhead. 

So...you like the stars.  It is a statement.

Well, in a way. They are...constant.

Are you always this cryptic?

No. But there is something terribly beautiful and permanent about a ball of gas several million miles away, which shall change but little during our lifetimes; and which we shall probably never visit.

I love how you say 'No', then prove yourself wrong. And will you ever travel to Africa?

No, but therein lies the difference. Africa is possible, within reach, almost..easy, one might say.

You are such a dreamer. You do get results though.

Perhaps.

Is that why you are depressed sometimes? Because you dream too much?

Maybe.

Well, you should try doing smaller things more often. Like this.

And they walk off, and go to a place less quiet, and more warm, leaving the sky alone behind them.

The Men That Don't Fit In

A poem by Robert Service.

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t fit in.