Quiet Times

My usual hangout like Vilasa Kunja has been extraordinarily quiet lately. Hardly surprising when nobody has anything to post. This seems a bit like an oxymoron: Out of 87 members supposedly engaging in spiritual activities daily, no one has anything to say or share about it? Maybe I had better start posting verses from Gaura-centric shastras again, just as I did before. That revived the forum a bit, didn't it?

But anyway, one would think that if one forum is quiet, the best thing is to go and hang out somewhere else? Well, no, because quite a few of the existing forums or news websites are rather disputative and political to various extents. Now I'm being slightly hypocritical about this since I used to be a bit political myself in days gone by, whether the topic of the day was institutional or theological, but I can say that it has been quite a while since I engaged in disputation about such topics. One reason for this is because I am leaning towards the idea that sacred subjects are sanctified enough to be held above our heads in a mood of respect, not to be used as weapons of disputation in a debate that will ultimately have little substantive meaning. So I'm not really interested in nitpicky debates over tiny things on subjects such as the "fall" of the jiva, siddha-deha, raganuga-bhakti, or whatever. Sometimes it is also in the nature of people never to admit when they are wrong, so it also becomes exhausting to talk about something when your fellow disputant is resistant to new knowledge or a different way of looking at things.

Not that I have been doing any of this lately! These are just collected thoughts spanning a period of the last few months or so. Personally I have no wish to engage in discussions at Audarya. I only go there sometimes to ask a question or post a Gaura-centric shloka, but going there sometimes brings a temptation to check out the other sections and lo! You are sucked into the disputative whirlpool if your sense of self-contrl is not as developed as you would like it to be.

The other thing refers to websites such as Chakra, Dandavats, Sampradaya Sun, etc. In my day when I was curious about all these controversies, I noted even then that the discussions and articles posted on these websites fell far short of proper etiquette and behaviour. This is true even today of some articles on the above-mentioned sites. Sometimes when I input the first or second line of a shloka into Google to find a proper English translation, I am led to one of these sites where the shloka is quoted and can't help noticing a salacious political headline. I sometimes think to myself, how can Vaishnavas spend their time criticising and finding fault with others? And if that wasn't bad enough, shastras are employed in this endeavour too?

I remember reading an article by the late Tamal Krishna Gosvami (back when the ritviks were trying to take over the place) in which he made a casual yet profound observation: In this day of the Internet, one's offences may multiply at the click of a mouse.

How true! And this is why it shouldn't matter if one's favourite forum is quiet. If someone has said something, read it and reply if necessary. If nobody has said anything, no problem. Just get back to chanting or reading some shastras. This is the "real business of life."