A Book on Yogis and Gurus

A Book on Yogis and Gurus

Question:  There is a book in four volumes describing hundreds of Yogis and Gurus living in one of the states of India. Most of them are married and some have even 11 children. But they left their families in pursuit of greater attainment. I think that they have not fulfilled their obligations to their families and my friend feels that they have failed in their ROLE PLAY as father, brother and husband. This question may seem to be not intellectual, but needs an answer if you know. THANKS

ramesam:  Thank you for asking. 

Here's my take:

A. About the Book/author:

1. If the author of the book found some to be yogis out of this immense universe, it appears as though he is using a knife and fork in order to fragment and lift a morsel out of the indivisible One Whole Ocean. The knife cannot cut nor can the fork lift a piece of the ocean (water). Or it is similar to picking up some forms and giving some names to those forms that are considered to be present within one huge cloud. It will not bother the cloud or break it into parts. Will naming one part as wave, another as foam, still another as deep water divide the One immense ocean or affect its Oneness of 'Ocean-ness'?
The knife and fork or labeling the shapes in a cloud are all imaginary filters (or divvying tools) the author is using. The mind creates these filters in order to fragment the Infiniteness into bite-sized things for its own survival. Be aware of these filters and do not be carried away by the story they tell.

2. It is like missing the forest for the trees and branding some trees to be more qualified to be trees than others within that one single forest!

B. About Role Models:

3. If you or your friend found that some (imaginatively divided) parts from within this Immensity did not make the grade, remember that it is you who set some criteria and it is you who is judging the parts to have made the grade or not based on those criteria. In other words, you and your friend are using filters. The filters are your own making.

4. Setting Role Models is like having traffic rules. Can you impose your traffic rules on some birds in a flock  flying in the sky?

5. Is your friend the writer of the script of the drama he is watching to say that one actor has deviated from his script of the role model? How does he know? Or is he watching the drama scripted by somebody else?

C: About the Motive behind your question:

6. Why are you asking this question? Is it not because you feel you are a separate wave sitting somewhere away from the ocean and watching the ocean? Can a single isolated wave (you) be there without the whole ocean? Can a wave exist by itself?

7. And does one wave in the ocean look to learn from or try to imitate another wave? Is there an ideal wave that can be a role model for all the waves in the ocean?

D. In General:

8. The world is one big dream-painting you have projected by yourself. There are different colors in the painting. Can you now, after the painting is done, try to choose one color as more moral than another color? Can red color be a role model for blue?

9. If you are looking for social obligations, societal rules etc., you are looking for assessing and managing relationships, formulating policing mechanisms, and judging behaviors for bestowing rewards and punishments. 

What is the ideal role model relationship between, say, your "back-of-the-neck" to the "calf-muscle-of-the-leg" in your one whole body? Can you dictate any such relationships? Could there be any such relationships at all?

10. To talk of "relationships", there has to be more than one entity to start with.  But there is One only, no second (ekameva advitIyam). Further, your right hand will not pick up a hammer and hit your own face. Because it knows it is all One body. You don't have to tell the right hand. It does not harm the face because it does not consider the face to be separate. It does not need a prior teaching and moral code of conduct. So also you will not need a moral code of conduct when you understand the Oneness. So Morality flows out of this understanding. Morality is not an external imposition.


11.  The so called yogi is as much a flimsy image on the screen as Mr. P or S or ramesam is. Each is a flash. I cannot say one image on the screen of the computer is ideal and the entire screen should be only in the form of that image or color. 

Well, I can say that, then I have the basic screen only - all one color!

12. If one image on the screen separates itself and says all other images should do as per its dictates, does it not show the arrogance of that image to think itself to be the authority?

***

Let me express a word of my gratitude to you. Right here you played the role of a Guru by asking this question.  Because it triggered an inward look into an issue that gripped my mind for one week and the fresh light of this analysis dissolved the problem! Under these circumstances, how are you any less than a Guru whether named in a book or not?  You have been a Guru !


What "IS" is Consciousness only manifesting in all forms wearing different costumes. The costumes are there a minute and gone the other minute. When we are not in the business of washing, why bother to prepare laundry lists (books) of the costumes? 

Who to divide and into what the indivisible One Whole?

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