It was a beautiful hardbound book and the man was smiling as he gave the book to me, “Your personal copy!” he said and I felt the cover. “You’ve spent a lot of money on it?” I asked. “The trust did!” he said. I opened the book and read the various topics, I was impressed, they were on Accountability, Bribery, Charity and a host of other subjects, only a saintly man could have written this.
I was impressed till I met his staff.
“He’s written another book,” I said as they sniggered.
“We wish, he’d live the way he writes,” they said and out of all of them poured accusations of arrogance, pettiness, and pride, of unaccountability and irresponsibility, which made me decide I would do a little digging, and digging I did. Sadly I found that what the staff said were true, the man was hardly the saint he tried to portray to the world he was. As chairman of a trust he had played merry hell with all the rules of the association, had not had elections, ran it without the required minimum members and manipulated the accounts and misappropriated funds.
He was no saint. Yet he had sat down and written a book on truth. Could go to different places through the country preaching and giving talks on how to lead a good life. How do people do this?
But more than that, is how do they get away?
They get away, because of our unwillingness to question them. You don’t have to look far to see gurus, swamis, TV preachers who are eloquent and articulate. They mesmerize you with their style of speaking, their tone, their voice and often even their content. We listen, we accept, blindly.
We have forgotten our ability to question.
And with that, these scoundrels get away.
I feel saddened as I read about mothers killing children, making sacrifices of babies, to please some tantric or guru. You get the feeling they were in a trance when they went about doing that gruesome deed.
Don’t blame the trance, blame your ability in wanting to be deceived.
Something I taught both my children was to question everything they learnt. “Open it up,” I used to tell them, “Examine it, and when you are convinced through questioning, argument and debate, then and only then, accept!”
They still follow their dad’s advice.
It was a beautiful hardbound book and the man was smiling as he gave the book to me, “Your personal copy!” he said and I opened the book and read the various topics, I was impressed, they were on Accountability, Bribery, Charity and a host of other subjects, only a saintly man could have written this.
He was no saint, but made one because we did not question..!
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Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.
Sadly we encounter many people like the character in your article today Bobby. The Bible has also warned us against such types. May Gods grant us the knowledge and wisdom to recognise them and stay away from them.
Yes in today’s times it is very important to question and cross verify everything we read or listen to before accepting or believing it. We cannot take anything at face value. It’s only through their fruits that false prophets can be identified; hence we need to do our homework and be aware of Scripture so that we can question and clarify to avoid being led astray. These are wolves in sheep’s clothing so it’s upto us to be alert and cautious.
There is no one truth in one world.Any truth even told by religion should be challenged argued and then followed.Many people have habit of talking about principle “how to live?”.But if one retrospects their behaviour its exactly opposite what they say.There should be very little difference between your thought and behaviour.
When we were children,my dad told us that if a sadhu was coming our way we are to cross the road as one was caught before he could sacrifice the 100th child to Kali for power he sought from the spirit.