How do people quench their social conscience?

It was late Sunday night, had our dinner at kaiyenthi bhavan! My husband and I went for a stroll after a very long time… We didn’t talk much. Both of our minds were occupied with only one thing. How do we counter all the irresponsible baseless allegations thrown at us… Many lakhs of volunteers’ heart wrenching efforts for social and human wellbeing over the last two decades, it hurts – whatever touched us, whatever we realized need to reach every human being on the planet – It is a stupid commitment (sankalp) one can take – but then every time someone comes to us and thanks us, our joy knew no bounds! We exchange tears of joy and bliss!

With all this running in our minds, he broke the silence, “People don’t seem to understand how much they are swayed by the one sided vested propaganda. They don’t seem to see the other side of the picture.” He said in a pensive mood almost on the border of abuse!

I asked him back, “Suppose, you were not part of Isha. You never underwent any transformation. All you know is your job, promotion, your family… That’s all. And you read something wrong about a bearded God man. What would your first instinct be?” He nodded, ‘yeah, I would have believed all that I read’.

See… A few people are waiting for this kind of news. “All Gurus are bad.” That’s what satisfies their ego. Because, they don’t want to believe in anybody. In between the times of Swami Vivekananda and Sadhguru, the choices we had was very minimal and a few troubled news item about the bearded men of those times completely sealed any openness that could be within them.

“I earn well, I take care of my family. I came up to this position on my own. I don’t believe in God. But I love nature. Nature is God!” Most of our people belong to this category. There is something called as social conscience. How do they satisfy that? By expressing their love for environment – “I am a social media activist for environment.” With all their helplessness, all they could do is registering their protest by sharing a meme or an article, against Isha. Two things get satisfied –

1. He is a Godman, guru, so he should be bad. Perfectly fits their ego.
2. I stand up for environment. Hence quenching their social conscience. I can’t plant a tree, I can’t water a plant, I can’t stop farmer suicide, I can’t stop anything. Let me atleast share this meme and create awareness. Of course, with all good intentions, they are doing their part.

You know, I was a very pious person during my college days. My dearest friend Anjana and I used to recite ‘Skanda Sashti Kavacham’ every evening in the hostel room. We both liked it. Once I got the job and started earning, I somehow felt the commitment towards God came down. I was confused and told, ‘God, don’t mistake me. There is no time for Friday temple routine’ Jus a few moments before the Pooja room before I start to work was the only interaction with the “Divine”…

Thankfully, this confusion didn’t last long. When I attended the Isha Yoga program in Feb 2003, there was a full stop to all my confoundedness. I stopped going to temples. I was free. For almost 6 years, I cared the least for temples. It was not my interest. 

But then, this man talked of consecration. He brought to life, right in front of my eyes – Bhairavi – what was jus a stone became Divine. My eyes started watering without control. A new dimension – Fire of devotion - opened up within me. No looking back since then.

It took several years for me to take this path of devotion. How do we expect a common netizen, hiding behind a garb of pseudo environment protector to open up and see a perspective bigger than him?

“But what about logic? Can they not see use their logical thinking to conclude who is right and who is wrong?” he retorted. 

People are fed with both sides of information and mostly they choose what suits their ego and belief system.

“But truth??” – Who cares about truth? Who has patience to go through the tons of articles and decide which is true? All they care is jus a meme or a headline of an article. That too, if it is positive headline, they won’t go inside to know the details. “Negative one” yes would read till the last word. Remember, truth is always expensive. We live in a world where no one wants truth but nice breaking news – stories.

Truth will slowly evolve. The western part of the world is fast embracing yoga and turning inward or spiritual. So, our folks would catch up soon! Until then, let them keep sharing the memes and have those "Oh my God!" moments.

And our stroll ended as we reached our apartment gate! :)