Saturday, May 18, 2019

Of tolerance and inclusion

A book I was recently reading made a reference to the following lines said my Swami Vivekanand in his famous Chicago speech around 125 years ago ...

I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.

I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: “As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.”

The more I think about these lines, the more I feel disappointed with where we have wandered. Has the trigger for these thoughts seen any change in last 125 years? Has the society evolved beyond the "Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism" or is still clutching these tightly, ever closer to the heart? Have we lost more advancement because of their continued existence?

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Respect the invisible labels

Received this as one of the forwards ...

"A car ahead was moving like a turtle and not giving me way in spite of my continuous honking! I was on the brink of losing my cool when I noticed the small ticker on the car's rear - "Physically challenged; please be patient."

And that changed everything! I immediately went calm and slowed down. In fact, I got a little protective of the car and the driver. I reached work a few minutes late, but it was OK.

And then it stuck me. Would I have been patient if there was no sticker? Why do we need a sticker to be patient with people? Will we be more patient and kind with others if people had labels pasted on their foreheads? Labels like - "Lost my job", "Fighting cancer", "Going through a bad divorce", "Suffering emotional abuse", and more like these.

Everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about. The least we can do is be patient and kind. Let us respect the invisible labels."

And the ruminations started, reminding me of an acquaintance. While everything else was going fine ... exchange of messages, going for dinner together, husband behaving in the same old bohemian self, wife behaving like the same old submissive self. However, we gradually observed that the lady started behaving weird ... limited communication, no customary messages and a long list of never-before's. The one-sided no-communication gradually turned into a cold war. A lot of insinuations and guess work followed. And one fine day we came to know the couple is on the verge of splitting. We were blind to this label.

A perfect example of you noticing a set of labels which were completely over-shadowing the real labels. When and how do we find out which are the real labels?

For those blessed souls who do not have any of these labels, or not a big one but a few small ones, what does it take to realize the essence of what is said above? While everybody thinks of his / her label as bigger than that of the other person, who gets to decide which label is the biggest? Isn't it best to give everyone else a benefit of doubt, and move on?