Preacher's breaches! (oorukku upadesam!)

PriyaKat · Feb 26, 2012

Good that you gave that lecture to the lad, so that he can orally transmit it to his descendents in time. How else can we keep our great tradition and culture alive ? Just like our Saffron Guardians of bharatiya culture, who are doing their bit by bashing up valentines day celebrations and then sharing "important" MMS files in the hallowed Assemblies. The Decadent West has no Culture because it lays more emphasis on a useless concept called "Honesty".

Great believers in "shruti" aren't we !

Cheeniya · Feb 27, 2012

Dear Priya
My dad always told me that he had nothing to advise me as all his bad habits I would learn by myself in due course and he had no good habits worth lecturing about. It was his firm belief that lectures about good habits usually fell on deaf ears. The lecture that I gave the little boy was more to hide my feeling of shame and embarrassment than an intent to pass on good values.

I try to be as pure as possible. Every morning I sprinkle a few drops of water on my mobile as purification of all the smutty messages I received on the previous day!
Sri

Viswamitra · Feb 29, 2012

Dirty linen has been washed and it appears clean now. When someone takes responsibility for their actions in public, I always have respect for them as it commences the process of exoneration. You have indicated in your first response that you have always hated hypocrisy. I am sure you were referring to that in connection with keeping respectability in tact while straying in real life. I immediately went to the definition of hypocrisy and found the following in Wikipedia:

Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have.<sup id="cite_ref-dictdotcom_0-0" class="reference"></sup> Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie.

But when you started teaching values to your grandson, you were living Hypocrisy as indicated in the definition above. I read your admission of hate of hypocrisy and your admission of mind drifting away to what was planned with your friends while teaching morals to your grandson as tacit admission of guilt in you and therefore the exoneration process started in these two admissions as well.

But I have one question to ask you. Does exoneration start when we admit or when we do not repeat that even in our thoughts? I believe it starts only when we clean up our mind.

Viswa

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Cheeniya · Feb 29, 2012

Dear Viswa
Cleaning up our mind is possible only when we realise that it is not clean in the first instance. Awareness of our faults and shortcomings assumes great significance in this context. An occasional introspection on where do we stand vis a vis the laid down procedure of good living will help us a lot. Mere admission of guilt or being aware of it does not absolve us of that guilt. A real hypocrite is one who is aware of his faults and keeps committing them without any compunction and on top of it preaches the tenets of a virtuous life. A good man on the contrary would cringe at the very thought of the guilt he committed and resolve not to commit it again.
Sri

satchitananda · Jun 29, 2015

Cheeniya Sir, I agree with you about this thorny crown of propriety and cannot but be reminded about Mr. Doolittle's litany about middle class morality!

What do I say, Sir, but that I do keep trying to prod youngsters to bring about a social revolution, but often wonder if they consider my thoughts to be inappropriate for my age. So you see Sir, I never preach what I don't practice, still no one takes me seriously!

Cheeniya · Jul 1, 2015

My dear Satchi
The other day my wife gathered some 'Ultra Trans' polypropylene water bottles in a sale. They are so transparent that even a tiny speck of some flotsam shows up vividly and we lose the appetite for water instantly. I hope you understand why I am saying this. The kind of transparency of character that arises out of always practising what we are preaching makes us a sitting duck.

Enigma is the name of the game. It is the icing on our character that does not allow others to see what is beneath it. Preaching only what we practise is easy but trying to practise whatever we preach is tough! That puts a ceiling on what we can preach. For example, if we preach that our life must be aimed at avoiding another birth, how do we practise it?
Sri

iyerviji · Jul 1, 2015

My dear Anna

I dont know how I missed this post, might be I must have read but did not know what fb to give. Except my children I know noone is going to listen to my advises. So mostly I never go to give advise except when I know the other person will listen to me. Now a days the youngsters dont like to take advise. Due to modern technology they get to know everything. Google is there to help anyone

Cheeniya · Jul 2, 2015

My dear Viji
Our popularity is inversely proportional to our tendency to dole out advices. The more advices you give, the less popular you will be! This has been the trend right from the period of our epics. Duryodhana would not take advice even from his father though he kept addressing him as 'Pithasri'!

Once there was a man who was walking with his young child in the perambulator. All the while the man was telling ' Be patient; in another fifteen minutes we'll reach home. If you are hungry, don't start crying. I have nothing to feed you with' and so on. A passer-by was astounded by this spectacle of a young father giving such sterling advices to a child. He told him, 'Sir! I really admire you. But do you think that the child will understand you?' and the young father replied, 'Who is talking to the child? I am telling all this to myself!'
Sri