Skip to main content

Fake Pilgrims? Perfect Example of Tamas (तमस)

September 24, 2012


It is a strange situation when people undertake a pilgrimage that is a saatvik (noble, pure action) activity but becomes an expression of tamas (stupid, thoughtless attitude). This India Today report of the Amarnath yātris who produce fake medical certificates of fitness to go to Amarnath is a sad story. This is a quote from the report:
Dr. Anita Murthy, who volunteered to serve Amarnath yatris at the Baltal base camp, said most of the medical certificates given to the pilgrims certifying that they were fit for the yatra were obtained through fraudulent means. "Their medical certificates are not genuine. Action needs to be taken against doctors who issue such certificates," she said.

According to her, most of the yatris have respiratory, cardiac and orthopaedic problems. "Many yatris do not come with adequate clothing and commence climbing without any acclimatization, attempting to complete the yatra in the shortest possible time.

Bhagavad Geeta 18-25 is a perfect description of the actions of these pilgrims.
अनुबन्धं क्षयं हिंसामनपेक्ष्य च पौरुषम् |
मोहादारभ्यते कर्म यत्तत्तामसमुच्यते ||१८-२५||
anubandha.n kShayaM hi.nsaam-anapekShya cha paurushham.h .
mohaad-aarabhyate karma yattat-taamasam-uchyate .. 18-25..
That "action" which is undertaken from delusion, without regard for the consequence, loss, injury, and ability, is declared to be TAMASIC (dull).

Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayanandaji says:
Such actors never care for the loss or injury caused to others by their actions, nor do they pay any attention to their own status and ability, when they act. All such careless and irresponsible "actions" undertaken merely because of some delusory misconception of the goal, fall under the Tamasic type.
Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Geeta in Literature - IF by Rudyard Kipling

September 12, 2011 I came across a nice YouTube video that is an animation of Rudyard Kipling reading his famous poem IF . The full text sourced from wikisource is below: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same: If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And los...
Post a Comment
Read more

Geeta Dhyānaṁ 2 - Vyāsā's Vast Intellect

January 7, 2013 Previously on Geeta Jayanti, I had posted on the eternal debt of gratitude to Mother Geeta that is the basis of Geeta Dhyānaṁ. I love Param Pujya Gurudev 's commentary on the Geeta Dhyānaṁ. Pujya Gurudev's commentary is after the introduction to the Bhagavad Geeta in the commentary on Chapters 1 & 2 published by the the Chinmaya Mission. I personally believe it should be a book by itself. After invoking Mother Geeta, we now pay tribute to the wise Vyāsa Rishi - the Guru whose Jayanti marks Guru Pūrnima every year. Pujya Gurudev starts His tribute to Veda Vyāsā in his commentary on the 1st verse of the Dhyānaṁ. Vyāsa, the father of the Vedās, who, first collected, edited and published the Veda texts and who thereafter, gave us the dialectics of Vedānta in his Brahma Sūtra, himself a great man of realization, was indeed well fitted for the job. The ancient seer had both the mastery of the theoretical science of religion - Hinduism and also the practical expe...
Post a Comment
Read more

यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठः yadyadAcharati shreShThaH - Role Models

December 25, 2010 I was driving with my 3 year old son in his child seat in the back of the car. When another car cut into my lane with very little warning, I yelled, "gadha" (ass (the animal, not the body part) in Hindi). I continued riving. In less than a minute, I heard a voice in the back seat say, "Gadha". Impossibly cute, my son was practicing this new-found word. Suddenly, it occured to me, like it or not, I am a role model every day for my son. I recalled a shloka from chapter 3, that my Gurudev, Swami Chinmayanandaji loved यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठस्तत्तदेवेतरो जनः | स यत्प्रमाणं कुरुते लोकस्तदनुवर्तते ||३-२१|| yadyadAcharati shreShThastattadevetaro janaH . sa yatpramANaM kurute lokastadanuvartate .. 3-21.. "Whatever a great man does, that alone other men also do; whatever he sets up as the standard, that the world (people) follows." In every Chinmaya Mission Gnana Yagna on chapter 3, he insisted that the audience memorize this shloka and chant it loudly...
4 comments
Read more