My dearest readers,
My heartiest greetings to all of you for the New Year 2008!
May we all be lead from insensitivity to sensitivity; self-centredness to other-centredness; ignorance to wisdom!
Here are some sentences from the spiritual guru His Holiness Sri Dalai Lama upon the Paradoxes of Our Times. Even if you have read it elsewhere before , I am sure the words can never go astale.
Here we go ruminating on His words:
We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers
Wider freeways, but narrower view points
We spend more, but we have less
We have bigger houses, but smaller families
More conveniences, but less time
We have more Degrees, but less sense
More knowledge, but less judgement
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values
We have learnt how to make a living, but not how to make life
We have added years to life, but not life to years
We have gone all the way to the moon and back
But have trouble crossing the road to meet the new neighbour
We have conquered outer space, but not the inner space
We know how to clean up air and water, but not our souls
We have learnt to split the atoms but not shed our prejudices
These are times of steep profits and shallow relationships
These are times of world peace, but domestic warfares
These are times of fancier houses, but broken homes
This is the time when there is much in the show window, but nothing in the stock room
A time when technology can bring this letter to you
And a time when you can choose
Either to make a difference ………………. or just hit, delete!
Reading these words and thinking about their pregnant meaning, I cannot but see the quintessence of Adi Shankara’s teachings. Though an ardent Advaitin, I listen to his Holiness whenever he visits West, and admire the way he presents the problems of the materialistic world and gives simple and solutions through lucid words. It is no wonder that he is held in such esteem all over the world.
If I have to appreciate any thing that Nehru did (many I do not) it is providing sanctuary to this great man who represents what is good in human!
The best interpretation of Devanampriya ’s(Buddha) teachings in a complementary way was given by the late Kanchi Sage Sri Chandrasekhara Saraswathy in a number of lectures he gave in early decades of 20th Century !
well,i hadn’t read that before.. quite good and amazingly true..
some of them are really very expressive
“These are times of fancier houses, but broken homes”
We have bigger houses, but smaller families
But have trouble crossing the road to meet the new neighbour
We know how to clean up air and water, but not our souls
We have added years to life, but not life to years
..thanks for sharing
ram, the erosion of values as expressed in the words of H.H.Dalai Lama, has reminded you of sri shankaracharya’s preachings. i was also reminded of the highest value that sri shankaracharya explains in his composition “Gurvashtakam” wherein, he dismisses all worldly achievements that a person looks forward to or even achieves in life as nothing compared to Guru’s Grace that everybody needs to have in his/her life that alone gives true meaning to our lives. He asks us, “Guroranghri padme, manashchenna lagnam, tatah kim? tatah kim? tatah kim? tatah kim?” – if our mind is not rivetted in devotion to Guru’s Lotus Feet, what use are all worldly gains? …………………
if you are interested to learn more about “Gurvashtakam” you may visit the site:
http://www.svbf.org/sringeri/journal/vol3no3/Gurvashtakam.pdf
Happy New Year to you too! Saw you in my blog visitors, you have a good one yourself!
@topic:
I totally agree with what you’ve (Dalai Lama) mentioned in your new year message. May this new year bring peace and harmony to the world!
I know “Gurvashtakam” as I read Sanskrit and underwent traditional tutoring of works of Adi Shankara and Advaita in my younger days even before I embarked on my engineering studies.
The reason why I drew pointers to the late Sage of Kanchi was that he explained in his lectures the nuances of basic universal human values giving examples from the teachings of Devanampriya. These lectures delivered around 1920s and 30s to audiences in Tamil Nadu are mainly in Tamil.