Do we ever say what we want to say or is it cloaked in formality? Aren’t we prisoners to proprietary, the society and what will everyone say? Isn’t life dictated by a series of do’s and don’ts? Forever as we are growing up we are told to do this, don’t do that as heaven knows what will happen if we go astray from the path set by some old social matriarch. Remember the young innocent game we played when we were kids (yes we were kids too) “sauna jaa chirrhea, uutth jaa chiirrhea“: that is what life and its so called invisible barriers want us to be.
An interesting and at the same time perplexing conversation was being held on FB yesterday where it said that should one tell the truth or lie specifically? Should we sugar-coat the truth so it is gentle or just lie so that it doesn’t hurt the person?
I feel that the lies even if they are small ones hurt the person and then you have to embellish them again and again so that they can be substantiated. It is like sinking into a bog/sink hole and not being able to touch the bottom. Lies even small ones create doubt, suspicion and makes it difficult for one to trust again. When we are young, we want to be lied to shield away the hurt, mask the pain but as we grow older, truth wins hands down. Is it because we get hardened by time? Do we all get a thick skin?
A “honest lie” (term coined by lawyers!) is what is practiced in the society. How many times have you said, “Oh you look beautiful” and not meant a single word of it. All the time you probably are thinking in your mind, couldn’t she have chosen a better dress? What about the meaningless, formality-sake conversation, where one asks how one is? And, the reply is fine. Do you go around telling one the whole Ram-katha of how your life is, you just answer with a blatant white lie. A white lie the stand-by foundation of the society, its just polite to tell a false answer without the audience actually believing it.
We have been taught that honesty is a virtue, it is the tenets of the society. We all want to practice but end up lying gently and lie in one form or in a variation which does not hurt the intended. The words are always said in a gentle way, the intent is what matters. Are your words meant to hurt, educate, love, heal or just undo the person?
This is the real motive. I feel, stringing of words have the power to hurt, wound, supplicate and to move heavens! Are you speaking to further your own agenda, or to further your ego? The level to which your ego is involved indicates how much Satya you want to speak. Honesty in some form can be used as a weapon, so use your words with compassion, love, kindness. Do not maim someone with speaking the truth. Honesty is the best policy, but if you use it brutality it actually defeats the purpose. You then are defeating the intent, by speaking the truth for the sake of speaking truth or for furtherance of ego or wants or desires.
Lines said by William Blake “Auguries of Innocence”:
‘A truth thats told with bad intent,
Beats all the lies you can invent’.

I went for a kirtan darbar held in the city last evening . The raison d’être was that all the ragi jathas were playing and strange that it may seem, I think the advancing years, knees knocking have made me partial to the songs of the Maker. It was indeed an eye-opener and the soul got a bit more weary and saddened.
We entered to a lit up podium, flowers mixed and hoodwinking with artificial flowers and there in I should have realized the deception. It was an exercise in convincing the public concerning their devotion to the Granth. As, someone said today morning, it was a pat on the back, and someone’s got to do it. In this day and age we do not worry if it is self-promotion, I mean if one did not look out for one’s interest, who will do? And, money does make the mare go.
Well, there was a congregation of holy saints, true karma yogis who graced the occasion. The kirtan was loud in the beginning and the instruments were played with extra strength and fervor all indicating that the loud pitch and extreme exaggeration would bring Him closer. I had always believed that hymns were sung to God as a humble person who had finished, silenced his ego and was quashing all doubts of his existence, but it seems you have to move all the three worlds. There were serious zakhms on me!
Another strange thing which disturbed me was that a lot of the so-called preachers who sat on the dais were disturbed, tensed, the ‘noor‘ missing , a few were at peace and radiated inner solitude but the rest were more worried about their cholas and the positioning of the kirpans. The entourage with them were large with menacing weaponry. I wonder when, they stopped smiling? This kind of religious ascending to reach Him is a no-no for me. There were, however a few who sang and the crowds were swayed by their melodious mellifluous voice who indeed were calling Him to earth. May the Gurus be kind to them.
The sangat came in large numbers, attracted by the fireworks, the lavish langar, and a chance to be blessed by the mere presence of wants by osmosis. A charged atmosphere, you see! Politicians who graced us by their presence took a short route to supplicate in front of the Guru Granth Sahib, they didn’t have time to stand in line like us common minions. Actually, it is my fault to think that they would follow the tenets of Sikhism, they just don’t have time to be normal or common. Life for them is a fast paced vehicle to amass more and more so that when death comes they might even strike a deal then. Never trust a man with soft hands, is the old saying.
With a pinch of salt, let me say, for an ordinary nobody like me, it took away a few misconceptions. I was looking a forward to an evening of bliss which I did experience for some time but it did get clouded with moments of extreme materialism, crass exploitation of the gullible public as always. We do love being taken for a ride… kya karein aam aadmi hain, na.