The word 'Error' is a nightmare for any software developer. One of our new joiners, a fresher, did an amusing thing. I assigned her a task to write a program that would generate a report in a file. Very soon she informed me she was done with the code. I was very happy with her speed. However, when I looked into the file it was blank (empty)!!! I asked her - if she had faced any error to which she denied. When I opened her code to review the logic, I found the cause. She had put a statement - "On Error Resume Next". For people who aren’t familiar with computer programming, this statement tells the program to "ignore any error that occurs and resume the execution with the next line of code" as if everything was okay. When I asked her why did she put this statement, she said, if she didn’t put it she was getting some error!!! Is it not funny, instead of identifying the root of the error, she decided to put a statement that would ignore all the errors and in turn make her feel happy? She was merely happy that her program didn’t notify her of any errors. What she did was because she was a fresher, lacking experience. However, if we think deeply, almost every one of us has embedded this Statement - "On Error Resume Next" in our life.
The errors of our life or the flaws in our life are highlighted if we take the path of spirituality, read the scriptures or come in an association of a bonafide spiritual person (devotee) from a bonafide Sampradaya. Now our problem is that we all hate to hear about the flaws of our life, each one of us believe that we are flawless and love to hear only that. Therefore many of us including the so-called scholars tend to keep spirituality as far away as possible so that we can be happy thinking our life is flawless. Hence the entire society is slowly becoming Godless.
One of my colleagues said – spirituality is impractical because scriptures say "do not kill" and in today’s world we can’t survive without non-vegetarian food. I was a bit shaken with the logic, I was confused should I laugh at the statement or not. Then I realized, the main problem in today's world is that we all are simply surrounded by things which are forbidden in scripture. Like – non-vegetarian diet (none of the religion/scripture support animal killing, every single scripture of the world has instructed vegetarian diet, for the people who are not in control of their tongue, scriptures suggest various ways of regulating animal eating BUT none of the scriptures support unregulated meat eating), intoxication (you might be surprised to know even caffeine is an intoxicant which is present in coffee, tea, chocolate, soft drinks. Paan or betel leaf which is very famous in India is also an intoxicant – which is why people have an addiction to these things), gambling (gambling is like a lottery- you invest and you hope to get multiple returns but there is no guarantee. Investment in shares and market is also a kind of gambling because it promises better return but there is no guarantee), illicit relation - break ups, patch ups, having multiple girlfriends and boyfriends are now a common talk even amongst kids, violence, adult movies, … we can list down for pages and page all the nuisances that our life is bombarded with. Most of our elders themselves have not understood scriptures (I will purposely not say "read", because almost every one of us are under an illusion of having “read” Bhagavad Gita or Quran or Bible hence we must stress on Understanding and not Reading), they are helpless in imparting us the "actual dos and don'ts of life". Nowadays, fathers are so irresponsibly ignorant that they proudly drink alcohol in front of their kids. So since the day we have taken birth, we have been exposed to all kind of nonsense (nowadays kids, before they get matured knows everything about sex, where is our society heading!!! We proudly call it advancement and then we cry and protest and do candle march when we hear about increasing juvenile offenders), lacking the true knowledge we adapt to this nonsense lifestyle and slowly accept them as a normal thing and foolishly term them as our freedom. In many countries, they celebrate freedom by going naked. Is that really a freedom?
People do not understand they are leading their Life as a puppet. We reject the spiritual people and choose the ignorant and arrogant ones as our friends and our society, and they support us immensely with all their honesty by sinking us in the quicksand of Godless modern society. Last Sunday, I was in railway platform waiting for my train. In the crowd, there was a group of school students. One of the students was having a body at max an inch wider than his skeleton. With his collar pulled back, sleeves folded up, chest puffed with ego and pride in his eyes, he was chewing tobacco. He went to another fellow of his group, might be their leader and complained - His throat was burning due to tobacco. The leader was calm and assured him that since it was his first time he is feeling this irritation. Slowly as he will continue, he would become accustomed to this and will not feel anything. So he must not quit chewing tobacco rather chew more often. Now I could go up to him and say – “Sir, you look very smart with the red juicy saliva filling your mouth and slowing dripping out from the corner of your lips, but this habit will cost your life, it will cause you cancer. So please stop it.” But he would have chased me away. Many times in the corner of streets you might have seen drunkard sleeping in the dirt. Stray dogs pee on their face and flies cover their filthy body, but you can find a blissful smile on their face as they sleep to their glory. Even in a sophisticated society, you may check the toilet area after party. The toilet floors are filled with the gastric juices of the white collar people.
They are ignorant and due to this ignorance, they think their life is so blissful. That is why Srila Prabhupada used to say in many lectures – “Ignorance is not bliss, rather it is folly to be wise where ignorance is bliss” Srila Prabhupada said in a Lecture at World Health Organization -- Geneva, June 6, 1974 said :
We are getting a better response from the Western countries than in India. In India, we see that the leaders, they do not like it. They are now opening beef shop, wine shop, and we are preaching "No intoxication, no meat-eating." So actually, we are not very favorable to their propaganda. (laughs) They don't like us, the leaders. Now there are big, big signboards. In Juhu we have got a center, and the government has opened beef shop, very big. And wine shop, you'll find everywhere. And we are preaching, "No intoxication, no meat-eating." So how they'll like us? That is the difficulty. "It is folly to be wise where ignorance is bliss." But still, we are struggling.
So this is our situation, we are confidently guided to pit by our ignorant association. We do not even realize it. The problem begins only when suddenly we hear or read that these are things are to be avoided. We get a shock. We think we can’t be wrong, all our life we can’t do something which is wrong after all, our intellectual relatives, friends, society, community, film stars and sports stars can’t be wrong.
And then we implement a statement "On Error Resume Next", which in simple English mean - "IGNORE" all our flaws. At times when we understand the flaws in our life and choose to correct it, our association becomes very concerned about us and they try their best to stop us. When my wife and I joined ISKCON we came to understand the real science of life by studying (and not mere reading) scriptures. We then understood and felt ashamed of the aimless animal life we were leading earlier. We then consciously took a decision to bring in positive changes in our life. Following the four regulative principles (no meat eating, no intoxication, no gambling and no illicit relation) and regular chanting of the Holy Name, we could actually find a difference both on the physical and mental level. Suddenly some of our old friends got very concerned about us after years. They didn’t even call us or ping us even for once when my wife was undergoing a surgery. Now suddenly out of nowhere they have reappeared and said, “... we are very concerned about you people, you have joined ISKCON but be very very careful, ISKCON will make you a vegetarian, they did the same with my relatives!!” My wife and I had a stomach cramp laughing at their statement. However we should not be laughing at these people, rather we must feel sorry for them for the deepest darkness they are in as when we try to explain them the reason they blaspheme us in return. We should sincerely chant and pray for them so that “may Krishna be merciful and give them some real intelligence”. Common reasons why most of us tend to reject scriptures or path of spirituality because –
1. Hypocrisy
Thanks to great souls for coming up with enlightening movies like - OMG and PK, many innocent people, especially the youth (who learn about life not from Scriptures but from movie stars and sports stars) have got more reasons to become an atheist. They think all the rituals are mere superstition. Now, whenever they see devotees offering something to beloved Lord almost everyone raises questions "Why not serve the poor?". But it is funny, where were these intellectualists when one of the Bollywood Actors after 13 years of his marriage, divorced his wife (12 years older than him and mother of his two kids) to marry another actress 11 years younger than him!! He gifted his new wife 53-carat solitaire diamond ring apparently cost more than 50 lakh rupees. It was a headline in almost every newspaper and hundreds of people had their eye popping out by the sight of the diamond. Nobody ever complained. Nobody ever thought of the poor starving people. Every year, millions of dollars are wasted on alcohol and tobacco, for the aristocratic parties. Nobody complains. But the very moment someone donates a 100 Rupees to a temple or church or mosque, hundreds of people will appear from nowhere to educate him about the poor starving people. This is the irony of the hypocritical Godless human society.
2. Education System
Fooled and intoxicated by the modern education system & science, we presume our knowledge is all perfect. Even though in one’s lifetime we see numerous theories popping up for the same topic. Example – Smallest Particle was once thought to be a molecule, which refined to be an atom(1827), then to an electron(1874), then to the nucleus(1909), it further developed and in 1913 Bohr model was proposed which went obsolete in 1922 with the advancement of Quantum Physics.
In the year - 1859, Darwin proudly announced to the world that his Grandfather was a monkey. Many cheered him, many agreed with him.
In 1922 amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed he had discovered the "missing link" between ape and man ..... In November 1953, Time magazine published evidence gathered variously by Kenneth Page Oakley, Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark and Joseph Weiner proving that the Piltdown Man was a forgery and demonstrating that the fossil was a composite of three distinct species. It consisted of a human skull of medieval age, the 500-year-old lower jaw of an orangutan and chimpanzee fossil teeth.
[Source: Wikipedia.]
Now, we all know Darwin's Theory was just his mental concoction and there are countless accounts documented that proves the theory wrong. But it has already created a havoc in human society. Human society got a so-called scientific support to become Godless. They think we are mere chemical or multicellular organism. Darwin had successfully isolated ignorant human from The Supreme. The irony is - even after proving the theory wrong, the modern education system is still teaching this theory in schools!!
The first man landing on Moon is another controversial topic, which I would like to safely avoid. However interested people can always check the internet to find out why was it a hoax. In every decade we believe in one theory (rather a story) and in the next few years, we are informed all that what was taught to us in schools and colleges has become obsolete!! Still, we are happy with it and proud of it. We think this is the advancement of science and human civilization. However, if we look at the knowledge shared in scripture, they are steady, and modern science is able to validate the statistics of these scriptures. E.g.: Speed of Light was mentioned in the Rig Veda thousands of years before science calculated it, Distance between Sun & Earth, Moon & Earth is given with accuracy, the concept of time calculation from atomic vibration is mentioned in scriptures. For more such details please read about Veda - The Manual of Life.
3. Ignorance
Hardly did anyone of us actually wonder - Who are we? We are generally happy to lead an animal life - of eating, sleeping, mating and defending. Since these question never came up, we never advanced towards reality. This is ignorance. Due to this ignorance, a common question asked by many Is Spirituality = Blind Faith? Before we attempt to answer that, we must understand the difference between Faith, Blind Faith & Superstition. We should also understand to live normally – without getting crazy – each one of us (including scientist & atheists) are having (blind) faith in something or other. Again we must also understand our belief is a Blind Faith or a Superstition if there is no strong ground other than sentimentalism. Therefore even in spirituality, we must understand – why-we-do-what-we-do.
4. Goat Syndrome
In The Mahabharata, when Yaksha asked: “What is the greatest wonder in the world?” Yudhishthira replied: “That no man, though he sees others dying all around him, believes that he himself will die...” In any roadside meat shop, a common scene in India, we can find that a butcher chops a goat while nearby a herd of goat is tied and given leaves to eat. Goats are seen happily eating them. They keep ignoring the evident symptoms of death and think "Let's enjoy and eat even the last piece of green leaf." Every month, if not daily we see or hear or read in the newspaper about someone or other's death. Most of these deaths are accidental, unexpected, sudden and without warning. But when we hear this news, we feel little sad but then continue with our normal life i.e. run after accumulating unlimited wealth and attain all the comforts of life. We subconsciously think we won’t die, at least not in near future. Hardly anyone of us realize, that we might die the very next minute. This is Goat-Syndrome and almost each one of us is like the Foolish Goat. I was a Goat, are you?
5. Lifestyle
For many, the intoxicants give them a sense of freedom and comfort. One of my relative says - he cannot think of a life without smoke and alcohol. We should be intelligent enough to know what is real Freedom and think twice before we say Let's get Addicted. People do not understand What we do, is who we are, hence they keep blindly pampering their bodies. However, instead, we should understand real Bodybuilding Tips.
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The aim of this article is to highlight, that human life is very rare and very precious. We can choose to waste it and will get millions and trillions of reasons for that. But we have just one reason for not doing so, and that is - "We are not foolish and we know the higher goal as prescribed in all religion". Hence we must be ready to know the error or flaws of our life. We must not be too proud to think we are flawless. We must try to REMOVE the Errors of our life and not IGNORE the Errors in our life. This is only possible if we take the path of spirituality, read and understand the scriptures by coming in an association of a bonafide spiritual person from a bonafide Sampradaya.
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