Three Life Changing Slogans
By
JIRARA
© JIRARA, July 2020
Published by JIRARA
On matrubharti.com
All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, for any commercial purposes without the prior permission of the author and/or publisher.
Disclaimer: This is the work of fiction as far as all the characters, their names and the names of all the events are concerned and all these are imaginary and hence any resemblance to the persons (and their lives) dead or alive, and any places are coincidental. Even if a few events might look realistic/’real’, these are fictionalised and the associated names are changed in order to maintain their privacy, honour, and security. No intention whatsoever is meant to hurt any feelings of whosoever, irrespective of their personal/cultural beliefs, social or political inclinations, religion-orientations/practicing/philosophy, life styles, and work/business. The ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’ (if any used) do not necessarily mean the author of this book, and these and other such pronouns: her, hers, his, he, she, him, you, your, yours, ours, theirs…; are used for effective personification and dramatization, and the readers should not take these on their ‘own persons’.
Please Note: The readers should take these stories/verses/thoughts with/in good spirit. The presented ideas and material are based, where feasible, on readings and (thought-) analyses of scientific/other open literature (which seemed most profound and trustworthy), with as much care as possibly taken. The readers are requested to verify these notions on their own, and use their own discretion. However, these stories/verses/thoughts/ideas (mostly original) are expressed here with an intention of increasing awareness of the readers with a hope that in an overall sense, their (and ours) consciousness would be heightened (in all and multiple directions), so that we all can live our lives on this planet with true happiness, ever-lasting peace and real joy (irrespective of our orientations). The author and the publisher will not be responsible for any negative effects/situations arising as a result of reading these stories/verses and/or following the suggestions if any. No discussions/dispute of any kind will be entertained at any time and in any way, manner, and/or forum. JIRARA.
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Three Life Changing Slogans
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1. You cannot change the world, but you can change yourself (- a young sanyasi/quite an old saying and thought).
When my father took me to a young swami, the sanyasi, to obtain his blessing for me while I was to proceed overseas; the swami with a simple and gracious style, was sitting on his cot provided by the village.
While, the bhajans were being sung by the assembled devotees, he took a pen and opened a page of a very small book in his hands; and scribbled a few lines on it, closed the book and gave it to me.
I did not have any courage to open it then, was scared to know, what he would have written there; my imagination ran:
‘Do not go or need not go abroad’ or,
‘This is the best place in the entire world’ or,
‘Do service to your motherland’ or,
‘You are yet too young to travel too far away from your parents’,
‘You should do service to your parents and society’ or,
‘Find a job here and settle here’, and so on and so on…
I carried the book given by that young swami to abroad, after settling there with the classes, and daily routines; one day I opened it, that was a tiny ‘Gita’ he had given to me.
On the first blank page and space he had written,
“You cannot change the world, but you can change yourself”;
what a profound advice, and truth to read later on, yet given at the beginning of my first ever journey to a foreign country!
Unfortunately, I have lost the book or I might have given away it to somebody; but his inscription is still so vivid on my mental plane.
Am I trying to change this world by writing; these ‘verses’, thoughts, and stories, and publishing them?
Have I changed myself after now seven decades of life gone behind me?;
May be still I am searching answers to these, and many more questions in a timeless quest!
Notes: The idea of this slogan is very simple, and yet very profound; in reality it is very hard to change people, even if they would listen to your advices, and suggestions with respect and awe; in fact they think that they are alright as they are!
Main obstacle is their/our own ego, and resistance to any change. The people (especially old parents), might have settled so well in their comfort zone, that any change is felt un-necessary, and not going to add to their value-addition. Also, they would have reconciled with their status-quo and any change means some extra mental/physical hard work, new exercises, new thinking to be done; and all these involve mental and physical planning/labour.
However, it is my own experience that change in our life-time is inevitable. We should always be ready to accept it, and try as much as possible to change our self in matter of: i) health, ii) manner of handling problems, and tasks, iii) manner of treating people with whom we need to interact on routine basis, and iv) safety, security, and discipline. In our life, any time we should be ready to accept change in order to be able to adapt to new situations and events that we might face inadvertently. If a serious mishap happens to you, then you need to make a lot of adjustments to your previous or the current life style, and attitudes. This applies in the matter of our body, mind and intellect; and also our ways of judging our actions and those of the others. Never, a stereo-type behaviour will work in our favour in case of emergencies. All this workout is not really necessary for other biological species, but for us the humans, this is a must.
Hence, we should be always ready to change ourselves; for our own sake and betterment; and betterment of our own children; who often learn many things from us implicitly or explicitly.
The important point of this slogan is:
You may not be able to change the people and the world around you, but if you change(-ed) yourself, to that extent the small world around is changed; because you are a subset of that world that is inclusive of you-a changed person. And in that way if everybody changes her/himself, the entire world is changed; of course this might take a lot of time; may be thousands of years!
2. Keep going, but think differently, one day you will be (or become) a different and better person-JIRARA.
Before reading further, please fully read items 20, 20a from my MB book: How My Slogans Evolved (by JIRARA, MatruBharti.com).
We all want to be sounding different and better persons than others, at least amongst the people who immediately matter to us; may be in our daily, and routine life’s endeavours. This slogan with its explanation (as in items 20, 20a) which you might have just read, would go a long way in affecting this positive change in your (our) lives. The main issue has been of deciding a goal for ourselves. It is my suggestion that one’s goal must be: i) to spread your own acquired knowledge (technical or philosophical, your skills/procedures) to others, ii) getting engaged in some social/health care system/service, and iii) raising peoples’ awareness (or consciousness) to build/develop/evolve societies with humanitarian cause so that they have a clear sense of compassion towards all/our fellow beings. Eventually, such humanitarian societies would live in an atmosphere of true brotherhood devoid of petty differences, and routine squabbles. If we then, apply the slogan 1 as discussed in previous paragraphs, then our entire country will become an exemplary nation that can be truly called as humanitarian state. The aim could be much far away, but one can make a sure attempt to achieve this. This can be achieved with collectivism based on principle of ‘inclusiveness’, and not on ‘exclusiveness’; in fact entire world including all the biological species and fauna and flora are intimately connected.
3. It is not (very) important, what you become, and what you do; but it is very important how you become what you become; and how you do what you do.
This is very catchy statement, a bit complicated; but in its essence and purpose it is simple and profound slogan. The emphasis is on the means and not on the end; though end (goal) is also more important in itself.
For example one can make lot of money, always by cheating, or looting them; but this would have created lot of agonies in the minds of those who are affected/looted. There are several examples of similar things and doings in: i) social work, ii) health care system, iii) educational system, iv) governance of a country, v) running and managing an organization, vi) public transport systems, and like, wherein or where for a few foul and incorrect methods and means would affect large number of people adversely. In an overall and average sense this would not bring any greater joy in your life. For short time you would feel happy, and secured; but in a long run, it might/would create some agony in your life.
It is very important that for your endeavours and achievements, you employ honest means and procedures that would not do undue harm to others. The emphasis of the slogan is that you use fair game of earning money, attaining status/higher positions, acquiring properties, and so on.
Notes:
It is my understanding that most of the very successful people in the world might have followed one or more of these slogans, implicitly or explicitly (i.e. sub-consciously or consciously), and reached the present position, and fame; but if some have not followed proper and honest means, and used crooked methods, then it is most likely that they might have offended many fellow beings, and brought hardship in their lives, and tears in their eyes; and in that sense what kind of blessings you can expect from them!
So, I do believe, that if you (including myself), follow one or more of suggested slogans and thoughts expressed therein, it is most likely that you would be a different and better person, and then you might get a lots of opportunities in your life, where by you will be able to prove your might/prowess; and then based on the positive results (there might be a few occasional failures), you will be able to enliven your further times with honoured minds, honoured intellect, and honoured judgement. The choice is yours and efforts are yours, then the successes will be also yours, with enhanced happiness and joy (when happiness increases beyond a threshold, it becomes sheer joy), this being the ultimate aim and desire of all of us-the humans.
***An end…***with a new beginning…***
