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PRABUDDH JEEVAN
DECEMBER 2016
THE SEEKER'S DIARY
THREE EVENT HAPPENED!
Three Events Happened in the last month!
* My Father and me alongwith a cousin couple went to The Promised Land - Israel and Jordan.
*The value of a certain paper changed overnight and was named Demonetisation.
• Someone very important to me called me insensitive over an idea that I thought was extremely thoughtful and sensitive.
Three disparate events. What could they possibly have in common and yet all the three brought me to my favorite aspect of Jainism that is Anekantvad or as one of its meanings which is multi perspective points of view / many sidedness.
The natural ability of an Enlightened one to see all the aspects of an event, person, experience. The manifold viewpoints. The relative truths and its relation to the Absolute Truth - is Anekantvad. The Holy Land
Israel; educated me about Irrigating desert lands and 4000 years of rich history with peeks into four humongous monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Bahai. Interacting with people of these faiths, made me come face to face with a West Bank resident, a Palestinian Muslim, a devout Orthodox Jew, a Syrian Christian and a Bahai.
All staking a claim to this as their land by giving facts and figures, historical proof and testimonials and written material. When my fantastic liberal Jewish guide explained to me 'When we were young, we could not utter the name Jesus or Yeshua'. And my Christian dinner companion told me that when she was young she could never get a Jewish friend home because they are the ones who killed her Jesus. While the Arab had all this history of Ottomon and Turkish wars and capturing of what then become their land. So Jesus was born a Jew. left this world as a Jew. got betraved by a Jew (and a few Romans) and post his death became the creator of Christianity and instead of seeing a common lineage is being used as a cause of hatred. Much similar to the case being so everywhere around us.
The point is that there were many points to this one piece of land called Israel. That many from all the sides
were dying, and rendered homeless or orphaned; Israel lives an extremely fragile life where on the surface it appears all ok and a real solid longing for peace but scratch the surface and one finds the there is hatred emerging from strong narratives of completely conflicting history, of anger and displacement and survival. Who is completely right? Who is completely wrong?
Their ways of achieving what they think is right can be questioned but who is really right will always remain a little blurry. Why cant they all live in peace as "Human beings" is a ridiculously naive and simplistic and utopian wish because the fundamental stories and beliefs are contradictory. Demonetisation -
Some said - "Wow, What a Move! Finally this country is going to see a Parivartan." and "What a Man Modi is! The Government has collected so much. Finally there will be a transparency, a straightforwardness which was so missing."
While to some others - "Modi is a Dictator, a psychopath a megalomaniac."
And yet for some others - "My money is my property and in a democracy how can one man decide how much when should a person take out or put in?"
Celebratory parties, heart attacks, people in queues patient, people in queues plundering, villagers not comprehending what just suddenly happened. Housewives suddenly seeing years and years of hidden savings rendered meaningless - the word to be noted here is hidden, the money might be white when earned but its about their own value of it, their own way of building their dream, having their sacred space, their independence looted, their sense of worth devalued and brushed out and incessantly joked about on whatsapp in a moment.
It was good, It was bad, It was ugly, different strokes for different folks as they say. Does the ends justify the means? A greater common good... All is right or wrong from different people and their individual perspectives. Insensitive - Who me?
was called insensitive for something, which I was
