Muktha title song explained

Thanks to fellow blogger Usha who shared this link:

The explanation is in Kannada, and apart from some other details, the explanation of the lyrics part is really beautiful. [For non-Kannada folks, I’d typed in a word by word English translation of the song in a learn kannada group long ago, will try to see if I can find it and update this post later.]

The word Muktha means liberation, and the explanation begins with “the
song does not talk about liberation in some other world, not the conventional notion of spiritual liberation, but liberation right in this material world that we’re living in now.“.

This explanation summarised one of my own personal deepest convictions – formed as a result of many diverse good and bad experiences (not just theorotical or speculative understanding) – that even a common man can experience what it means to be a liberated man – i.e. a truly happy man 🙂

As Einstein explains, the conventional approaches to it may not always work by themselves. We have to go beyond them, find what makes us really free, and try and live with our true nature.

There’s a Zen story…

Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they noticed a scorpion that was drowning. One monk immediately scooped it up and set it upon the bank. In the process he was stung. He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell in. The monk saved the scorpion and was again stung. The other monk asked him, “Friend, why do you continue to save the scorpion when you know it’s nature is to sting?”

“Because,” the monk replied, “to save it is my nature.”

[Of course, if I were the monk, if not the first atleast the second time, I’d probably have used one of the vessels I was washing to scoop out the scorpion. And I’d have left it far enough away from the water for it to not get in there again. But then, its just a story 😉 which makes its main point quite well I think.]

Well, finding what one finds true happiness in is pretty hard to figure out. A terrorist like Bin Laden, is probably pretty happy destroying buildings. Many things like anger, revengeful attitude, hatred, etc we often say is “its his nature”, but they’re more of a habit pattern based on some past incidents rather than one’s true nature.

A very radical idea that I’ve heard from several independent wise men – and which I’m somewhat inclined to believe – is that when we condemn violence, we are actually adding negative energy to it. Not that we should encourage violence in the least, but just that we don’t need to get all worked up about it. So we don’t think ill of Bin Laden, or some other criminal… we don’t speculate or lament how everything is so wrong and what a terrible world it is. Instead, we wish that they come out of the blind ignorance that they’re engulfed in (and ourselves as well, in our own ways).

In some situations, this idea might sound pretty insane. But consider the case of the one man, to whom it was pretty unfair when, for no fault of his, he was being whipped and tortured and literally being nailed to death. This is about as wrong and unjust to the individual as things can ever get. There’s a lot of religious literature on the topic, but as far as I know and the only thing that I’m interested in – is that instead hatred or even complaining bitterly in self-pity… he was simply praying for them – praying that they are forgiven as they are being ignorant. And of course, Jesus was definitely among the most sane people in the history of mankind 🙂