Comments on: Let’s put nobility back into festivals http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/ Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:24:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Roy Gachuhi http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/comment-page-1/#comment-696 Roy Gachuhi Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:16:00 +0000 http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/#comment-696 Dear Sunny, Thanks. By all means, quote from the article. And all the very best wishes. Kindest regards, Roy. Dear Sunny,
Thanks. By all means, quote from the article. And all the very best wishes.
Kindest regards,
Roy.

]]> By: Sunny Bindra http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/comment-page-1/#comment-684 Sunny Bindra Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:56:14 +0000 http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/#comment-684 Roy: I am delighted to have 'provoked' you into writing such a thoughtful piece. You have clearly thought deeply about the life of the human being, and have gone beyond mere reading of sacred texts. I couldn't agree more: it is perfectly possible to know something is bad, yet continue to do it. It is one thing to have the map, another to walk on the road. We would all gain immensely by just knowing ourselves more. With your permission, I will quote from your comment in a forthcoming piece - perhaps at Christmas time! Roy:

I am delighted to have ‘provoked’ you into writing such a thoughtful piece. You have clearly thought deeply about the life of the human being, and have gone beyond mere reading of sacred texts. I couldn’t agree more: it is perfectly possible to know something is bad, yet continue to do it. It is one thing to have the map, another to walk on the road. We would all gain immensely by just knowing ourselves more. With your permission, I will quote from your comment in a forthcoming piece – perhaps at Christmas time!

]]> By: Roy Gachuhi http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/comment-page-1/#comment-678 Roy Gachuhi Sat, 24 Nov 2007 08:21:16 +0000 http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/#comment-678 Dear Sunny, As I do on all Sundays without fail, I read your article, “Let’s bring nobility back to festivals.” I couldn’t agree more. Yes indeed, lets. But how? You said that “it is perfectly possible to find a balance between enjoyment and a spiritual uplift but we seem to have no idea what that balance is.” True, and that’s why we are where we are. With great communication skill, you laid out all the pertinent questions that define our miserable condition. All these are summed up in your very strong statement that “it is sometimes difficult not to ask what the human animal was given higher consciousness for, given the trivial use made of it”. Kindly give me your attention for a while on this one. I am fully convinced that the root cause of all our problems is the incompleteness of our education – religious and secular. In my experience, complete education has three aspects to it: the subject of knowledge (i.e. the knower), the object of knowledge and the process of gaining the knowledge. Our modern education deals only with the objective aspect of knowledge. Therefore, we become very good at whatever objective field of study we pursue. Many blessings – as evidenced by the spectacular progress made in science and technology, in trade and industry, in the arts – have come upon the objective field of life over time. Yet this has been accomplished using only a third of the knowledge capability of the human being. Illiteracy in the knowledge of the self equally makes a professor of any discipline in the objective field of life and a peasant who has never opened a book susceptible to the same problems in life: greed, vanity, anger, jealousy and false attachment to material things. Sometimes the professor has these vices more in abundance than the peasant. We sometimes wonder why our religious leaders are not guiding us to the light and we are thus consumed in the darkness of alcoholism, debauchery and aggression. The truth is that we are in the same boat. They don’t know better. They can quote the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, from start to finish but that does not make them any better than those of us who may only have heard of those holy books. They can only be qualified to instruct us if they are themselves structured in the knowledge. And the instruction must be practical, not academic. This has nothing to do with intellectual understanding; it is entirely experiential. At the experiential level, all human differences dissolve. There is no Christian, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, Kikuyu, Digo, rich, poor, Mzungu, Mhindi, tall, short – or any of the other myriad superficialities. There is only Truth. This is what modern education – religious or secular – has failed to implant in our consciousness. Objectively, we know that God does not belong to any of our tribe, religion, race or gender. How come we are unable to live according to that knowledge? This is simply because modern education is incomplete. It does not deal with the subjective field of life. The knower is a total stranger to himself. He knows everything else except himself. Whatever he thinks he knows about himself is only from the intellectual, objective level. That is why it is possible, for instance, to know that adultery is bad and yet one still repeatedly commits it. Whoever does not have knowledge of the self structured in his consciousness does not have a preventive mechanism against mistakes and must suffer, regardless of his accumulation of intellectual knowledge. Modern education alone can never give a human being happiness. An illusion of it, yes, but not the real thing. When you travel a highway on a hot noonday, you see water in the middle distance. When you get there, you find the water is further up the road. You mark the place and drive on. But when you get there, the water is still further up the road. You drive on and on until evening comes and, exhausted and thirsty, you discover there was no water on the road. It was just an illusion. This is the tragedy of modern education. It is puts you on an endless road to gaining knowledge with a guarantee that you will never arrive. You will never be in a position to say: Yes, I am knowledgeable and because I am knowledgeable, I am free from mistakes. After traveling life’s long road, you get old and claim wisdom. In fact, it is just resignation. Were it wisdom, you would not be falling sick, you would not be getting angry and frustrated with other people. Otherwise, we must ask: what wisdom is there in enduring the same problems that you endured when you were younger? Stoicism is not wisdom. Dear Sunny, there are techniques that every manager and every worker in the world should know today. I don’t know whether you are recommending them to your valued clients. The human being was indeed created in the best of moulds as the Koran says and in the image of God as the Bible affirms. There is no need to suffer. The enduring wisdom in the Bhagavad-Gita - Further than the furthest, and yet near at hand is That. It is Far and it is Near – implemented practically, will save us from ourselves. Reading and knowing is not enough. In fact, it only adds to the stress, like a thirsty man who knows that water quenches but cannot partake of any. Let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for “provoking” me into writing this piece to you. I really, really enjoy your articles. Why don’t we agree to make time for a cup of tea sometime on condition that we don’t turn it into an occasion to “make noise, over-indulge and then collapse”? Kindest Regards, Roy Gachuhi. Dear Sunny,
As I do on all Sundays without fail, I read your article, “Let’s bring nobility back to festivals.” I couldn’t agree more. Yes indeed, lets. But how?
You said that “it is perfectly possible to find a balance between enjoyment and a spiritual uplift but we seem to have no idea what that balance is.” True, and that’s why we are where we are.
With great communication skill, you laid out all the pertinent questions that define our miserable condition. All these are summed up in your very strong statement that “it is sometimes difficult not to ask what the human animal was given higher consciousness for, given the trivial use made of it”. Kindly give me your attention for a while on this one.
I am fully convinced that the root cause of all our problems is the incompleteness of our education – religious and secular. In my experience, complete education has three aspects to it: the subject of knowledge (i.e. the knower), the object of knowledge and the process of gaining the knowledge.
Our modern education deals only with the objective aspect of knowledge. Therefore, we become very good at whatever objective field of study we pursue. Many blessings – as evidenced by the spectacular progress made in science and technology, in trade and industry, in the arts – have come upon the objective field of life over time. Yet this has been accomplished using only a third of the knowledge capability of the human being.
Illiteracy in the knowledge of the self equally makes a professor of any discipline in the objective field of life and a peasant who has never opened a book susceptible to the same problems in life: greed, vanity, anger, jealousy and false attachment to material things. Sometimes the professor has these vices more in abundance than the peasant.
We sometimes wonder why our religious leaders are not guiding us to the light and we are thus consumed in the darkness of alcoholism, debauchery and aggression. The truth is that we are in the same boat. They don’t know better. They can quote the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, from start to finish but that does not make them any better than those of us who may only have heard of those holy books. They can only be qualified to instruct us if they are themselves structured in the knowledge. And the instruction must be practical, not academic. This has nothing to do with intellectual understanding; it is entirely experiential.
At the experiential level, all human differences dissolve. There is no Christian, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, Kikuyu, Digo, rich, poor, Mzungu, Mhindi, tall, short – or any of the other myriad superficialities. There is only Truth. This is what modern education – religious or secular – has failed to implant in our consciousness. Objectively, we know that God does not belong to any of our tribe, religion, race or gender.
How come we are unable to live according to that knowledge? This is simply because modern education is incomplete. It does not deal with the subjective field of life. The knower is a total stranger to himself. He knows everything else except himself. Whatever he thinks he knows about himself is only from the intellectual, objective level. That is why it is possible, for instance, to know that adultery is bad and yet one still repeatedly commits it. Whoever does not have knowledge of the self structured in his consciousness does not have a preventive mechanism against mistakes and must suffer, regardless of his accumulation of intellectual knowledge.
Modern education alone can never give a human being happiness. An illusion of it, yes, but not the real thing. When you travel a highway on a hot noonday, you see water in the middle distance. When you get there, you find the water is further up the road. You mark the place and drive on. But when you get there, the water is still further up the road. You drive on and on until evening comes and, exhausted and thirsty, you discover there was no water on the road. It was just an illusion.
This is the tragedy of modern education. It is puts you on an endless road to gaining knowledge with a guarantee that you will never arrive. You will never be in a position to say: Yes, I am knowledgeable and because I am knowledgeable, I am free from mistakes. After traveling life’s long road, you get old and claim wisdom. In fact, it is just resignation. Were it wisdom, you would not be falling sick, you would not be getting angry and frustrated with other people. Otherwise, we must ask: what wisdom is there in enduring the same problems that you endured when you were younger? Stoicism is not wisdom.
Dear Sunny, there are techniques that every manager and every worker in the world should know today. I don’t know whether you are recommending them to your valued clients. The human being was indeed created in the best of moulds as the Koran says and in the image of God as the Bible affirms. There is no need to suffer. The enduring wisdom in the Bhagavad-Gita – Further than the furthest, and yet near at hand is That. It is Far and it is Near – implemented practically, will save us from ourselves. Reading and knowing is not enough. In fact, it only adds to the stress, like a thirsty man who knows that water quenches but cannot partake of any.
Let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for “provoking” me into writing this piece to you. I really, really enjoy your articles. Why don’t we agree to make time for a cup of tea sometime on condition that we don’t turn it into an occasion to “make noise, over-indulge and then collapse”?

Kindest Regards,
Roy Gachuhi.

]]> By: Elizabeth Muthuma http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/comment-page-1/#comment-662 Elizabeth Muthuma Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:10:41 +0000 http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/#comment-662 This is a spot-on article that bravely tackles a very pertinent issue in today's festivities. I especially like the fact that you have tackled all major religions. Well done, Sunny. This is a spot-on article that bravely tackles a very pertinent issue in today’s festivities. I especially like the fact that you have tackled all major religions. Well done, Sunny.

]]> By: Martin Irungu http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/comment-page-1/#comment-648 Martin Irungu Mon, 19 Nov 2007 05:26:40 +0000 http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/#comment-648 Well done Sunny. This is an article that all religious leaders, be they Hindu, Muslim or Christian, should read, internalise and preach to their followers to ensure that the true meaning of the religious festivals that we celebrate is truly understood and practised as opposed to being extravagant. Well done Sunny. This is an article that all religious leaders, be they Hindu, Muslim or Christian, should read, internalise and preach to their followers to ensure that the true meaning of the religious festivals that we celebrate is truly understood and practised as opposed to being extravagant.

]]> By: James Gathogo http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/comment-page-1/#comment-647 James Gathogo Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:46:59 +0000 http://www.sunwords.com/2007/11/18/lets-put-nobility-back-into-festivals/#comment-647 Well said Sunny. All my life I've known Christmas as a time of serious goat eating. Christmas is also a time when the antacid (Eno) people do soaring business. It may be an uphill task, but we should start questioning the motives behind some of the things we religiously follow year after year. Some are just wasteful. Well said Sunny. All my life I’ve known Christmas as a time of serious goat eating. Christmas is also a time when the antacid (Eno) people do soaring business.
It may be an uphill task, but we should start questioning the motives behind some of the things we religiously follow year after year. Some are just wasteful.

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