With apologies to great thinkers

We must thank Shri P. Ramanathan for his thought provoking post...

" Neti Neti.." He felt another Adi Sankara is needed to interpret the

order of the Supreme Court. By this he meant that the order is open

to scholarly interpretations that can differ widely.He arrived at the

conclusion that the court order makes us finer individuals devoid of

any attachment to worldly matters ..full of Nispruha and Nirmaman,

to quote him. His philosophical exercise, it is expected, would lift

us out of our excessive concern for mundane matters.

I am reminded of a story of a disciple of the great teacher Sankara. The teacher propagated "Aham Brahmasmi." Everything is brahman or manifestation of Brahman. The disciple memorised this formula very well. One day he was going on a street and an elephant was coming in  opposite direction. That mahout was shouting to people to clear the way for elephant. This disciple applied his thinking.  He thought I am the Brahman. The elephant also is brahman. Hence it could do me no harm.

He stood in the middle of the road (thus thinking) and was promptly lifted by the elephant with its trunk and thrown aside. Fortunately he was not much injured and went back to guru to complain. Guruji, You told me about Brahman. How is it the elephant did not respect the brahman in me.

Then the guru said " the mahout also is brahman. Why did you not listen to the mahout?"

The above may be a story only. But it has some important message. We are Brahman. The judges also are Brahman. LIC/UOI bureaucrats also are Brahman. So also those who run the government and change labour laws to the detriment of workers. All these aspects of Brahman collectively impact us. Do not forget other aspects of Brahman. Those who represent the employees in-service are also part of the Brahman, if not the whole.

Can I close this with a quotation ?." Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please: they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past."

Purists of dialectics may frown on me. Be it so. We have the capacity to laugh, even at ourselves. Long service in LIC has given us capacity to survive even in most adverse circumstances. But more of this later. Right now I would add, there is no substitute for optimism. Let us wait for SEPTEMBER to arrive.