shivani sent this poem by Bharat Thakur that I took the liberty to share with everyone.
when a saint and a wordly man met,
each looked at each other,
silent and mocking.
both laughed at each other.
each said the same thing:
what have you done to yourself?
I love the poem, yes we are so quick to judge other person and think of self as suprem being. i discovered your blog today and i am sure will be a regular visitor as i love your work and admire you as a person
wow.. thats a deep poem..
but one thing troubles me. How can a saint mock someone? if he does mock, then he has a sense of superiority.. which is a worldly emotion, which means that he was not a saint to begin with…
hi shekhar !
a worldly man professes no more than what he is………………..but a saint……..! no (true) saint would ever say “what have you done to yourself”……..he would be ‘stitpragna’… just acknowledge all with the same non judgemental peace……..if he is a true saint , his presence itself would influence the worldly man……..his aura would do the talking, NOT HIM!
What does wise men have to say about “Looking for happiness — where do we find it?”
Written by rudra
Monday, 12 May 2008
I was having a conversation with my friend and Tai Chi partner yesterday on our way back from class about the nature of happiness. Please do not treat this article as a lecture of some sort. This is written from the heart and with good intent.Read more….
Dear Shekhar,
They both were happy, one sees his past and other one his future. What ever different experiences we go through many lives the final question we come to is “tell me one thing knowing which every thing becomes known”.
Do you know who goes through the most difficult time in his life? One who walk the path of truth and want to pull his people along with him. The term “difficult time” is relative to ones condition. But think about the person who has renounced the world and knows the truth. Yet he is here to help his people.
Hello Mr Kapoor,
I share the same point as Sridhar and the anonymous commentator… If its a real saint then he should de non judgemental. The superiority of a saint is contestable. But then a saint is first a human before being a saint and I guess his human nature took over his saintly aura? Is it?
Regards
JoJo
PS:Thanks to IBN I discovered your blog. I appreciated you since childhood… cause you were different. Hope to keep reading about you FROM YOU
I loved the poem. When I read the comments that have come in by the readers, I could not comprehend why they were surprised to read that the saint had the same question for the man caught up in worldly desires. Who says that a saint can’t be proud of what he is? If we go back into mythology we can find innumerable evidences of many saints who were enlightened and still had traits like that of anger etc, and who went about casting spells on people for their wrong doing. And what do people mean by the term ‘true saint’ or ‘real saint’? It is absurd. Is there a measure to say that this person is a ‘true’ saint and this one is a ‘lesser’ or ‘unreal’ saint? History has shown that many saints had wives and lived regular lives, for example Ramkrishna Paramhansa – do these traits make them any less ‘saint-ly’?
A saint is a person with supreme knowledge. A saint is someone who can disjoint his thoughts and differentiate between knowledge and emotions. Being saintly is more to do with the state of mind – it is about not following the rules and doing predictable things – if there were rules and traits of being a saint, don’t you think there would also have been a rule book on “how to be a saint”.
So I think it is not unimaginable to read that a saint can mock – I feel the readers should see the deeper meaning – the beauty of both posing the same question to each other and the magnitude of difference in the thought process behind their question.
Sridhar
I’m not sure if they are mocking each other or laughing at the fact that they on the same wavelength! Above the norm!!!
hi shekhar thanks for sharing this poem with everyone. and thanks deepshikha for hitting the nail on the head.
one can micro-analyse poetry but the real message here (in my opinion) is the dichotomy in 2 peoples brains and how none is 100% certain/ right. love, shivani
a saint exists
because a worldly man does
a worldly man exists
because a saint does
All one when each asks:
what have I done to myself?
wiser when each asks
what have I done to you?
and even more, when each asks
what have I done for you?
Nice Poem. But in lighter vain, the last line could read: “Ye kyaa haal bana rakha hai. Kuchh lete kyon nahin.”
Nice Poem. But in lighter vain, the last line could read: “Ye kya haal banaa rakha hai. Kuchh lete kyon nahin.”
Strangely, or not so strangely, it reminds me of this…
fairness does not govern life and death
if it did, no good man would ever die young
and yet there is fairness in the universe
we all know it
that’s why we rise up when we fall down