I am reading a primer on Raidass these days. Raidass or Ravidass was a medieval saint better known in North India by the saying "Mann changa to Kathauti men Ganga" i.e if your heart is clear then even the water in a cobblers container is equivalent to Ganga water. Mindful that Hindus consider Ganga water to be pure and nothing else. Its another fact that Ganga is quite polluted today.
I have had this primer of a book for quite a while now and how I got it is another story. But the reason I picked it up and started reading it a few days back is because there is quite some furore in India around protests of SC/STs...so I thought let me pick up a book which talks about one of the most renowned lower caste saints of India - Ravidass, who was a cobbler saint. Am just amazed at the vocational saints of medieval India. Kabir was a weaver.
So...I was reading the book while coming on the metro today and trying to get an insight into the caste system of India, though I am part of it too. And just as I got down at the Mandi House metro station I started humming the song 'Bullah ki jaana main Kaun' and I got the song! I think I really got in touch with the meaning of the song, which has not only great spiritual ramifications but also educational ramifications. I realised that whatever you forget...thats what you are or to put it another way whatever you remember you are...you are not that. Bulleh Shah, the great Sufi poet perhaps reached such a state where he didnt know what he was - and he counts all the identities in the long poem or Kafi. He had attained that state.
Believe me its difficult to explain what I really got. Crazy stuff!..and someone who is not on a spiritual journey will find it extremely difficult to understand what I am writing and where I am heading for.
It was quite a moment for me at the Mandi House Metro Station, a rather non-spiritual place especially in the morning rush hour.
I also realised that the real education is what we forget i.e which is so internalized in us, that we dont even know we have it...for example our accent...what we speak...thats what we really are. If we have to tell what we are...we are exactly not that but something else.
I thanked god and Bulleh Shah and started my walk to the office digging the thought deeper and in just about an hour had moved on with my daily routine in office, until I found an email from our communications person, who had requested everyone to share about themselves in 75 words along with a pic to be put up on our new website.
And just when I thought of jotting down those 75 words...I didnt know what to write...should I write about my education, my passion of education, the fact that I am a amateur film maker, blogger, thinker, philosophers...there was just too much.
And suddenly Bullah came back singing Bullah ki jaana main Kaun. What a coincidence...the day I discover my own meaning of Bullah ki jaana main kaun...i am officially asked to write who I am?
So I decided to just use 5 words for my introduction - Bullah ki jaana main Kaun and perhaps I will ask my communications officer to put a link to this blog...which is my personal one and not education.
I know even after reading this blog one would not know anything about me. But then why should anybody want to know me. I am nobody. I am nothing.
P.S - I wasnt able to write anything after the above line...It just stopped.... though I was thinking of writing more. Then I thought I might as well put it in the post script...not to break my own feeling.
Moving on...Chal we Bulleya chal Othe Chaliye, Jithe saare Anne,
Na koi sadi zaat pachane, na koi saanu manne
Arre haan...there was another thought that came to my mind while on the metro. I thought there was no '' About Us' section for most of the saints but yet they managed to do such great PR and communication that we remember them centuries after. What level of communication...without FB, without twitter. I guess that there was so much depth and simplicity in their communication that things went into people's head. Orally so much of knowledge was transacted.
I guess I am done. Let me listen to Bullah ki jaana main kaun...as my mind says...look at what you have written. But as usual I will not edit what came out of me. Let it smell of freshness.
P.S - Just as I am finish this and publish...I have to put labels and I thought let me put many labels but suddenly I stopped at Bullah ki jaana main kaun
I have had this primer of a book for quite a while now and how I got it is another story. But the reason I picked it up and started reading it a few days back is because there is quite some furore in India around protests of SC/STs...so I thought let me pick up a book which talks about one of the most renowned lower caste saints of India - Ravidass, who was a cobbler saint. Am just amazed at the vocational saints of medieval India. Kabir was a weaver.
So...I was reading the book while coming on the metro today and trying to get an insight into the caste system of India, though I am part of it too. And just as I got down at the Mandi House metro station I started humming the song 'Bullah ki jaana main Kaun' and I got the song! I think I really got in touch with the meaning of the song, which has not only great spiritual ramifications but also educational ramifications. I realised that whatever you forget...thats what you are or to put it another way whatever you remember you are...you are not that. Bulleh Shah, the great Sufi poet perhaps reached such a state where he didnt know what he was - and he counts all the identities in the long poem or Kafi. He had attained that state.
Believe me its difficult to explain what I really got. Crazy stuff!..and someone who is not on a spiritual journey will find it extremely difficult to understand what I am writing and where I am heading for.
It was quite a moment for me at the Mandi House Metro Station, a rather non-spiritual place especially in the morning rush hour.
I also realised that the real education is what we forget i.e which is so internalized in us, that we dont even know we have it...for example our accent...what we speak...thats what we really are. If we have to tell what we are...we are exactly not that but something else.
I thanked god and Bulleh Shah and started my walk to the office digging the thought deeper and in just about an hour had moved on with my daily routine in office, until I found an email from our communications person, who had requested everyone to share about themselves in 75 words along with a pic to be put up on our new website.
And just when I thought of jotting down those 75 words...I didnt know what to write...should I write about my education, my passion of education, the fact that I am a amateur film maker, blogger, thinker, philosophers...there was just too much.
And suddenly Bullah came back singing Bullah ki jaana main Kaun. What a coincidence...the day I discover my own meaning of Bullah ki jaana main kaun...i am officially asked to write who I am?
So I decided to just use 5 words for my introduction - Bullah ki jaana main Kaun and perhaps I will ask my communications officer to put a link to this blog...which is my personal one and not education.
I know even after reading this blog one would not know anything about me. But then why should anybody want to know me. I am nobody. I am nothing.
P.S - I wasnt able to write anything after the above line...It just stopped.... though I was thinking of writing more. Then I thought I might as well put it in the post script...not to break my own feeling.
Moving on...Chal we Bulleya chal Othe Chaliye, Jithe saare Anne,
Na koi sadi zaat pachane, na koi saanu manne
Arre haan...there was another thought that came to my mind while on the metro. I thought there was no '' About Us' section for most of the saints but yet they managed to do such great PR and communication that we remember them centuries after. What level of communication...without FB, without twitter. I guess that there was so much depth and simplicity in their communication that things went into people's head. Orally so much of knowledge was transacted.
I guess I am done. Let me listen to Bullah ki jaana main kaun...as my mind says...look at what you have written. But as usual I will not edit what came out of me. Let it smell of freshness.
P.S - Just as I am finish this and publish...I have to put labels and I thought let me put many labels but suddenly I stopped at Bullah ki jaana main kaun
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