Monday 29 November 2010

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

We can start to live

Toronto, Ontario

Perhaps the most familiar verse from the Gita which Hindu folks relate to starts like this... Karmany evadhikaras te ma phaleshu kadacana... One guest from Gujarat, India, a doctor, began to recite the verse expressing the importance of duty. To put it in simple terms, this verse translates as, "One is entitled to perform his/her duty and not necessarily the results."

He said it with a smile. I took it that the verse was his life-line and I was happy to hear that he didn't prescribe to the tune so common with the entitlement generation. He is among the ranks of people who believes in work and earn. Of course, for some people it becomes a question of "how much?" At least the mood here is "I am a contributor first, an enjoyer second."

While in Jerusalem recently an Orthodox Jew who had accrued some Vedic wisdom said to me in an amicable way, "You have to follow your dharma (duty)." And Krishna strongly advised his warrior-friend, Arjuna, that rejection of dharma is sin; that it's evil.

I like the scramble of letters or rather the reversal of letters to the word "evil". Do not be evil, but live. So when we master dharma, duty or responsibility, then we really begin to live.

7 KM

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