Getting in touch with one’s spiritual side is a rage among corporates which began in the US and seems to have trickled into the place of origin and into my B-school. Keeping in touch with our Indian roots, as I had mentioned earlier, yours truly has been subject to a course that focuses on Karma yoga, gyana yoga, Upanishads and the works. Now, laying the cards on the table, I honestly don’t mind sitting in the class because in its true essence, I do seem to be understanding a lot about myself. For a very odd reason, I seem to have become more pensive in nature. I guess I’m at another stage of personal evolution.
Coming back to the point I wish to make; we have been given an enormous amount of pre-reads with regard to the whole spiritual discovery of oneself and in true college style all my batch mates seem to be going through the subject in manner similar to getting a monkey off ones back. This is perhaps where the whole course fails miserably. I just cant understand how one expects to comprehend the value of Karma and inner spirituality without actually hitting the core of the subject , but by merely reading it on the bus and skimming through the pages. I don’t think anyone wants to attain karma, but that’s a different and immaterial story.
Rule One : No one learnt anything by mundanely reading a book. And the fact that almost all of us are reading the books, which are already concise and, just for the sake of not being thrown out of class by the professor is something that just does not settle too well with me.
I do spend a few minutes everyday calmly reading the books and I actually seem to understand a lot about the way I am, the way I seem to have sub-consciously determined the results of my actions even before I have done them, answers to some of the questions in me, and a lot on tiny things here and there. While I am supremely confident that I will not become the next Gautam Buddha and attain salvation, I do feel a better connection with me than before. And I don’t think I got this way by unemotionally reading the books like mathematical formula while pacing up and down a room or listening to my peers give me a brief summary of the brief summary that they read on Wikipedia. This sort of reminds me of trying to make fast food even faster by merely glancing at the picture of a burger up on the wall and assuming that you’re full and all cravings have been satisfied. ( On an unrelated note: I’m in the middle of no where and there are no burger joints around…please send parcel NOW!) It’s just unfair to the subject and it’s unfair to us as it’s a major waste of time and life. One could do something more awesome rather than waste time attending a class where all one does is to ask the prof mundane questions about life based in the few words or sentences that you skimmed through in the one hour before class. I don’t blame them. Given the course curriculum, a subject like this does lose its relevance with reality.
I’m only fairly miffed by the manner in which we’ve managed to take something that could, if comprehended in the right way actually have the power to change one’s outlook to life. But instead, we’ve created a product ready for a fast paced generation which serves no purpose but is a mere statutory requirement that Yes ! I have read the course material.
BTW: This blog entry comes from me sitting outside the Spirituality class. I decided to bunk the class as I had not completed the pre-reads. And since I woke up this morning, not feeling too lucky, I might get thrown out of class. And I don’t think I have the heart to be subject to such an experience.
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