Times Then and Now
Reminiscences and Reflections
Part-3
Dr. Yerneni Venkateswara Rao
M.Sc.,
Ph. D
Retired
Principal
GUDIVADA-
A.P
B1-31
Whether to collect things to make your life
full or to fill the emptiness of your heart with riches, that is the question;
it admits of but one answer not both. While the former is an illusory pursuit,
the latter is by far the wisest course.
B1-32
There are no great men, only great
challenges that good men are called upon
by circumstances to meet and become great through their successful achievement.
B1-33
Vocation, profession and occupation are not
synonyms as so many mistake them to be. Vocation is what one cannot but do
because of one’s own nature, one’s need to fulfil something deeper in response
to an inwardly felt call, one’s interests and dreams, profession is what one
chooses to do driven mostly by the pressure of prevailing norms such as
financial security, social status and success in life or by the power of
reigning fancies while occupation is what one is forced to do for a living by
sheer practicality and/or dire necessity.If a vocation is devoid of
spontaneity, love and involvement, it becomes a profession which, in turn ,
degenerates to the level of an occupation when it is divorced from/drained of
dedication and commitment ;a dull routine or a burdensome chore performed
mechanically is but another name for occupation.
However , that lucky one who knows how to
listen to one’s ‘inner voice’ and follow its gentle dictates can make
one’s profession a vocation or vice
versa and enjoy the blessings of both.
B1-34
Everything that you earn in life through
honest labour bears the stamp of
yourself, for in earning it, you exchange a part of your life. So, how you use
it is important because it is not a mere thing that you use but a precious part
of your life.
B1-35
Quite often, perceptions have little or
nothing in common with what they are perceptions of; the perceived may
altogether be non existent or redundant. Charlatans and conmen , not excluding
politicians, know it better than anyone and they use this knowledge to foul up
the lives of people everywhere by playing on their credulity and , more so in
countries like ours. The appalling degree of devastation and degradation they
inflict on society/wrought by them is to be seen to be believed.
B1-36
If ever you are lucky to come by a great
opportunity to do a great job, don’t rush, make sure that you measure up to the
task and then seize the opportunity by the forelocks and prove your mettle by
performing to your utmost or perish in the attempt. Either way, you triumph for
in great attempts, even to fail is glorious .But a greater glory lies / victory is in
discriminating wisely between what can and cannot be achieved/accomplished and
acting accordingly, for even the little things accomplished in a great way lead
to great consequences.
B1-37
There is as much wisdom in choosing the
right job as there is in avoiding the wrong one.Little or great the job the job
you do is important to you because you exchange a part of your life for it so
do every job you do in a great way.
B1-38
Self sacrificing and self regarding
activities, though they appear to be equally efficacious as sources of self
gratification, fall into two distinct categories; the former are by far the
more meritorious of the two. They act as stepping stones for self abnegation ,
love , sympathy , charity , compassion and tolerance which constitute the core
elements of spiritual discipline for becoming aware of our true nature/
identity. Together with the possibility of realising it by elevating the soul
to its supernal plane of eternal bliss, while the latter insidiously feed the
ego- the body-mind- intellect complex/personality – to make it so bloated that
it becomes eternally bound to the mundane plane with myriad bonds of attachment
and aversion by getting caught in a perpetual cycle of births and deaths. However, those that graduate to the stage
where they do self-sacrificing acts without ever being aware of their doership
as if doing so is like any other unconscious action such as breathing, walking,
seeing, sleeping , dreaming or any one of the umpteen other physiological
functions and processes that take place automatically are bound to realise the
essential identity of their soul with the Brahman “from which all these beings
take birth, by which they live after being born, towards which they move and
into which they merge”. (Ch. U. III 14-1, Tai. U. III)
B1-39
A life lived in being all things to all men
is at best a grand illusion and at worst a beautiful lie, but a life devoted to
doing the handsome thing by the deserving is altogether a different
proposition.Only the great and the good do such things.
As a chagrined voice might ask, when are
the great and the good in a majority?Never.But it hardly matters for , like the
Himalayas, the great and the good are visible even from a distance as so
rightly pointed out by Dharma Pada.
Such indeed are the actions that set the
great and the good apart from the rest and put/install them on a high pedestal
so that others may draw inspiration and emulate them.
B1-40
Surprising how quickly times change
especially when ill winds are blowing.
As recently as two generations ago, it was so easy to pick up a dozen people
from any crowd who believed in certain values and who were prepared to lay down
their lives to defend them, whereas
nowadays it is hardly possible to come across any such even among the so called
elite groups while it is certainly possible to find droves of people who denigrate
any and every value without batting an eyelid, not out of conviction but out of
fear of being branded as a faddist or a fogey or, worse still, a naive old sod.
This being the situation, if wickedness is having a field day, should we look
for reasons afar off?
B1-41
Matter is a gross form of energy and energy
that of consciousness. What is
consciousness the gross form of? Does this put paid to the chain of inferences
or does it point to further links in the chain? Who but a Jnana yogi knows?
B1-42
As Mark Twain declares , ‘A man cannot be comfortable
without his own approval.’ And his own approval he will certainly have when he
ensures that his means are as clean as his ends.i.e, when his means are as
impeccable as his ends are unquestionable.
B1-43
Laziness is dangerous. Intellectual laziness?
Absolutely devastating, but the devastation wrecked on the proud owner of the
intellectual laziness is so insidious and treacherous as to be beyond his
grasp. So beware of laziness of any and every variety.
B1-44
Although the words, learning and earning
differ by a mere consonant , the two activities are light years apart in terms
of the results they produce.
B1-45
When expediency becomes the guiding
principle of life and instant gratification the goal, dishonesty and hypocrisy
come to rule the roost massacring every virtue they encounter on their
triumphant march to the inevitable doom.
(To be continued)
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