Sometimes we really look up to people and hold them in high esteem. And then they make a mistake, atleast in our perception. Then we feel so terribly let down – that we may end up dismissing everything they ever said as false.
For example when so many passionate fans of cricket abruptly lost interest in the game after they match fixing was exposed.
I’d been astonished while reading in the fantastic biography (last year) of Sensei Morehei Ueshiba the founder of Aikido, a martial art where awareness is the key… that once while running to save a child, he tripped and fell down! Such a silly mistake, hardly befitting a man of his background 😀 [This was in a way kind of encouraging for me actually, to realise that after all even masters make mistakes… who am I… why must I expect some kind of perfection from myself…!]
Those were some trivial examples, but a major one where though I myself wasn’t affected, was the case of Richard Bach:
Author of several excellent books (mainly Jonathan Livingstone Seagull) – his book Bridge Across Forever was a love story based mostly on his real life.
Summary:
Much truer to an autobiographical style, “Bridge” is the story of how Richard and Leslie found each other, and what happened after. Richard always knew that there was one woman out there for him, his soulmate, but had a very hard time finding her. This book picks up where “Illusions” left off. Richard quits his flying to find his soulmate. The first part of the book leads you through the choppy starts and stops of many relationships. Then he begins a purely professional relationship with a beautiful actress named Leslie Parrish. This grows into a friendship based on long chess games, huge bowls of ice cream, and much respect. Still, Richard is sorting through the many other women in his life. When finally he realizes that Leslie is the one for which he has been waiting his whole life, he finds that he is not ready for the commitment that a soulmate deserves. The remainder of the book is their struggle. Richard is trying to become less self centered (something that is at the very core of what he is), and Leslie is trying to deal with Richard. It is a great period of growth for him; one with which we are all familiar in one way or another. Too much more would give too much away, but I promise that I haven’t even touched on the best parts of all.
(source – internet, but that link is dead now)
I actually read that book, and won’t give my opinion of it here as it would be a distraction, but the main point is that he had written about the most idealistic form of romantic love, far superior to the conventional love that we see in romantic movies.
While all that may sound very glamourous, it may also be noted that in real life, Richard and Leslie eventually ended up divorced. This caused a lot of anger in many fans – I remember seeing this on some site which happens to be pulled down now: they’d asked questions along the lines of was everything you had said false? I’m so disillusioned that there’s no real true love in the world… blah blah blah (plenty of swear words as well). And he ended up writing another short story to console them.
What was the point of the fans in putting someone high up in a pedestal and then throwing him down again later! Atleast as far as I was concerned, I felt that the ideas in the book made a lot of sense, irrespective of Bach’s personal life.
J Krishnamurthy aka JK, is considered an enlightnened man, and was a renouned humanitarian and philosopher. His disciple U.G. Krishnamurthy, aka UG, faithfully followed him for many years and suddenly turned against him, and is spending (he’s very much alive, and is based right here in Bangalore) the rest of his life criticising JK. When I listened to what both had to say, I somehow got the impression they were saying exactly the same thing 🙂 in different ways. Osho, yet another spiritual leader, had something similar to say:
If somebody brings up J. Krishnamurti’s name, he immediately condemns J. Krishnamurti — and whatever he is saying is just an imitation of J. Krishnamurti, paraphrasing.
Osho says a lot more in the above link, and now the whole thing looks like some kind of a political scene 😀
Earlier, I’d probably have been more concerned about laughing about the pettiness of the whole situation, and more interested in the criticism aspects in Osho’s words. I would’ve eventually ended up criticising Osho as well for his criticism, since UG is indeed a respectable character who can’t be totally written off just because of some vague incidents.
Thanks to the influence of my good friend Upendra, what really happened was that I sidestepped getting caught up in some useless analysis. Upendra keeps reminding me that words are said relevant only in that particular era or some particular context, and when we see excerpts or quotes recorded by faithful disciples, they might be totally irrelevant, so take what is useful and ignore the rest!!
An example is that Buddha had said he did not want women as a part of the group of monks. This taken by itself would make Buddha seem to be a major male chauvinist – which would’ve been quite incorrect since Buddha was full of compassion even to the smallest and most insignificant (apparently) of creatures. [Btw it was Ananda who asked Buddha “are women not capable of enlightenment?” and when Buddha answered Yes, he convinced him to allow women as well. The reason for refusal became apparent later, when some nuns ended up becoming pregnant… 😉 ]
I’m not a keen follower of this mailing list by an anonymous guru, but so far I’ve found a couple of messages relevant to me… and remembered one in the current context, where he says:
There is a difference between enlightenment (in the light) and perfection (always right). The first is real. The second is an illusion.
So more than the criticism, I found Osho’s comments about Ramana Maharishi were really insightful.
So what I’ve learnt at this point is to not be judgemental, to not dismiss what someone’s saying just because of some particular statements or particular incidents. Everybody has something to say, so give them a fair hearing, and then decide to either accept it or ignore/forget it.
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