Why Shankar Failed?

Re: # 14, kalihawa:

I think I already have discussed more than necessary but there is one point that needs to be made in response to:
``It is no blasphemy to borrow characters from history and create fiction. Perhaps ‘Adi’ prefix was unnecessary. ``

Blasphemy is defined as: ``irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable.``

The name of Adiguru Shankaracharya qualifies for the sacredness AMONG Hindus. So, spreading disinformation about him is indeed ``blasphemy.`` Ask you sister and mother/father if they are there.

Now if you are a non-Hindu, then your name is misleading.

Re: # 13 Inquirer:

“You responded to the least significant of my questions. But thanks. I would appreciate if you fully respond to at least six other issues identified in my #11. Particularly it is essential to identify how much of your write-up is by Chowk Editors.”

I don’t think Chowk editors added anything to the text apart from correcting galling grammatical errors. As I said this piece was written a few years back, one of my earliest writings. Guess I am improving.

“Thanks, for the clarification. Your write-up does call the leader ``Adi Shankar.`` Did the Chowk Editors introduce ``Adi?`` The bear also calls the leader ``acharya.`` I believe there is a loose construction problem. May be you yourself were not clear about the purpose and the content of the write-up. Your choice of the name of the expedition leader was unfortunate, please see my #10.”

It is no blasphemy to borrow characters from history and create fiction. Perhaps ‘Adi’ prefix was unnecessary. But I was told he was the one who built Kedarnath Shrine, therefore he failed from my point of view.

“4. ``Your complete indifference and unconcern for unusual will result in failure of your mission in the future.`` ****This is a non-sequitur.****”

May be for you. It makes sense to me.

Rest of your comments are judgmental, I have nothing to say.

Re: # 12, kalihawa:
You responded to the least significant of my questions. But thanks. I would appreciate if you fully respond to at least six other issues identified in my #11. Particularly it is essential to identify how much of your write-up is by Chowk Editors.

As for for the God`s reward commensurate to the devotee`s pain, I may open a forum on its discussion for an across the board discussion on all religions.

Re: # 11
``If you have been to Kedarnath you need to respond to comment 9. ``

I am not a religious person, my sister is. A few years back my sister’s daughter was operated for ovarian cyst, distraught she forced me to take her to Kedarnath shrine. Funnily everybody thinks the more you suffer on a pilgrimage the more likely it will be for God to notice your prayer, how this logic works, beats me. Makes the God kind of a tyrannical Zamindaar.
Anyway we walked from Gaurikund (4000 ft) to Kedarnath (11750 ft) some 14 Km trek. I found the temple architecture pretty ordinary but like all old structures, wear and tear of age and darkened stones due to fungus lent it a kind of mystic aura. I had no wish to go inside the crowded temple but succumbed to emotional blackmail. In the sanctum sanctorum was a square meter of cleanly bordered rock, where a bunch of priests were conning people into believing those tiny peaks on the rock were various Gods viz. Parvati, Ganesh, Shiva etc.

Once the ordeal was over I sat on large boulder away from the temple and closed my eyes. It felt very good, peaceful and calming.

Re: # 9, kalihawa:
Thanks, for the clarification. Your write-up does call the leader ``Adi Shankar.`` Did the Chowk Editors introduce ``Adi?`` The bear also calls the leader ``acharya.`` I believe there is a loose construction problem. May be you yourself were not clear about the purpose and the content of the write-up. Your choice of the name of the expedition leader was unfortunate, please see my #10.

Had you had the correct name of the leader the confusion would not arise and the responses would not be muddled.

Now, taking further from my #4. I believe my comment 4 still stands and the subject statement serves no purpose in your write-up. So does comment 7. If you have been to Kedarnath you need to respond to comment 9.

As for the ``need to go deep,`` it is you who should lead the discussion to elicit the commenters response. Do not expect readers to provide you with deeper interpretations.

PS. If the Editors messed up your article you should ask for an admission from them.

Re: # 7, nasah:
What a relief to see your comment! You have been so ``reasonable,`` I would not like to bicker with you. That would involve contradictory thoughts and I do not like that!

May be above is also a kneejerk response!! But I prefer that over calculated, propaganda and prejudicial interactions!!!

I do have this defect: I am generally too serious and therefore, I take the jokes also seriously, sometimes.

Now to my poodah.

As explained by you, I agree with your approach. I think that Kala and Chowk Editors goofed in including the article in Gulberg. As explained by Kalihawa it should have been included in Leafyglade Inn. The text was ambivalent also which resulted in an ambivalent response from you. The choice of the name of the leader of the expedition was unfortunate, it should have been Jagdeep or something like that.

I completely agree with your last sentence and I could have written it!!!

Re: # 4

This Shankar has nothing to do with real Adi Shankar. The story is, as you put so succinctly, a concoction to bring out a point. The essence of my story was that there is an exhilarating natural resort akin to heaven, which guys reach after great effort and in their completely misplaced focus on religion lose out on experiencing that transcendental tranquility.

There is need to go deep into semantics of what great bear said.

btw I knew Shanker Da very well -- we used to agree on many things -- before he left Chowk for Kedarnath.....:)

Inquirer you over interpreted my post according to your own knee jerk biases -- my post was not directed at Hinduism -- it was in support of religion as your private choice versus demonstrative religion -- that God as an organized religion business -- that goes for every organized religion including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism as well as Buddhism.

I respect organized Islam as much I respect organized Hinduism -- which is to say not much.......:)

Re: # 5, nasah:
``Shanker failed -- when he took a personal private cherished God that he found at Kedarnath -- took Him into the deepest cecesses of his personal heart -- his very personal religion -- but then took a bad decision and made it PUBLIC-- turned it into an organized religion -- made it into a cult -- into a business -- into a politics -- into a mob -- into an entertainment -- ``
****By any criterion Shankar did not fail in regard to anything. You need to know about Shankar, his times, his impacts on the Hindu Religion and Society before opining on these issues. I can excuse you on these scores because you are a Muslim and are not expected to know about such things.

Shankar had led the resurgence of Hinduism after the decay of Buddhism and its societal failure. In many ways he picked up the essentials of Vedanta, not Vedas, and developed a synthesis of Vedanta and Buddhism. In doing so he maintained the essentials of Vedanta and incorporated the essence of Buddhism as a subsidiary element. Thus, he demonstrated the superiority of Hindu Religion predating Buddha. True, he introduced organization of the Matths but that was very important to give an all India form of the renewed Faith. Shankar`s Advait is the very antithesis of a cult. There are no political or business directives in it. As for the mob and entertainment, it shows your ignorance of Advaitic philosophy.****

``Shanker lost his private personal God the moment he built a shrine of stones and mortars -- and as soon as he put his own God in it -- he emptied his own heart as the abode -- and made the stones and mortars the abode of his God.........turned the shrine into a God itself... ``

****How do you know Shankar lost his personal God? You need to put the temple in its proper perspective. The temples are often an organization of lesser humans that want to draw income from it but to focus on them rather than your own devotion shows misplaced focus of attention. Your conception about Hindus regarding stone statues in temples as God shows your lack of knowledge about the sophisticated Hindus. Naturally, among the Hindus also, there are people at all different levels. Some are unable to see the idea of God behind the concretizing representation. You are equating all Hindus with those limited ones and that is a shortcoming.****

``the moral of story -- keep your own God in your own heart private -- don`t commercialize it -- don`t advertize ......don`t carry it on your sleeves.....don`t impose it on others....if you did you failed...you turned into a wannabee Jihadeeeee...........``

****I totally agree with you. But remember a leader of people also has a responsibility to make the path for lesser individuals a little bit easier so that they, the people, can have a chance to develop in their own way.

What is really unjustifiable about the jihadis is that they impose their thoughts on the followers of other religions. They try to convert the followers of other religions BY VIOLENT MEANS. And they should be neutralized, militarily if necessary.

That is why, I wrote in my profile about the unacceptability of proselytism. There should be no effort to change the religion of another person. When you do that all politics, business, cultism, and entertainment creeps in. Hinduism is the only religion which not only does not convert anyone but also discourages Christians, Jews and Muslims to come within Hindu Fold. This is partly due to Shankar`s formulation of Hinduism.****

``The appropriate conclusion to draw from the write-up, author notwithstanding, is that the proximity to God is felt when the undiverted attention is grouded in hard work. The attainment of the God proximity is certified by the devolution of a calm fulfillment of/with life.``

No inquirer -- Kala drew the most appropriate conclusion from the story --

Shanker failed -- when he took a personal private cherished God that he found at Kedarnath -- took Him into the deepest cecesses of his personal heart -- his very personal religion -- but then took a bad decision and made it PUBLIC-- turned it into an organized religion -- made it into a cult -- into a business -- into a politics -- into a mob -- into an entertainment --

Shanker lost his private personal God the moment he built a shrine of stones and mortars -- and as soon as he put his own God in it -- he emptied his own heart as the abode -- and made the stones and mortars the abode of his God.........turned the shrine into a God itself...

the moral of story -- keep your own God in your own heart private -- don`t commercialize it -- don`t advertize ......don`t carry it on your sleeves.....don`t impose it on others....if you did you failed...you turned into a wannabee Jihadeeeee...........

I assume Anil Kala is Kalihawa.

Several points:

1. Is the bear incident from a legend? Or your own concoction?

2. Irrespective, one can work with the write-up though its significance would be different in both cases.

3. The bear incident could be illuminative provided there is sufficient intellectual depth in the observer. Yet the incident, if concocted, should have been better designed.

4. ``Your complete indifference and unconcern for unusual will result in failure of your mission in the future.`` ****This is a non-sequitur.****

5. Actually, Shankar did not fail, if the interest of peoplein going to the temple and availing oneself an opportunity is the criterion for success.

6. The commenters have failed to see the point that is inherent in the episode.

7. The appropriate conclusion to draw from the write-up, author notwithstanding, is that the proximity to God is felt when the undiverted attention is grouded in hard work. The attainment of the God proximity is certified by the devolution of a calm fulfillment of/with life.

8. The sad state of the most of the pilgrims to Kedarnath is due to their own purility.

9. What did Anil Kala experience? Without the specification of that the whole write-up has no personal grouning.

10. Though totally wrong and showing a lack of understanding of experiences other than the conditioned response, nasah does have a point, viz., it is better to be not hasty in summarizing unfamiliar issues.

Re: # 2

You are lucky, you haven`t seen the MS. The editors have done a great job. This is my first creative writing.

Ama yaar, you took what could have been a perfectly good story making a meaningful point and messed it up by putting in a couple of your own paragraphs of thought at the end. And those glaring typos! What a waste of good material! The asinine title stinks, too.

Shanker failed because he deprived his God from the warmth of his good heart by putting Him in a cold shrine where He froze to death...