Shurik’s Blog

Now, a friend of mine (let’s call her Shustra) has criticized me in regards to the idealistic tone of my (first ever) blog entry. Shustra then asked me how her chide jives with me–am I not offended that she thinks that World Peace is too lofty an ideal to hope for, when just waking up in the morning is too heavy a burden for some? This criticism both shows that someone actually read my blog (yay!) and is an excellent impetus to create a second blog entry.

To paraphrase, this is how Shustra admonished Shurik:

"Shurik, get off your high-horse and smell the coffee. I disliked your message about peace. I think it was idealistic and honestly I disagree with searching for world peace If I am not able to find in inside of me. Sadhana begins inside of one, then it goes around one’s house, then community and eventually all together becomes the world….

–Yours truly, Shustra."

So this is my response to my friend Shustra:

Dear Shustra,

Thank you for reading my first ever blog and making such thought-provoking comments. To tell the truth, I was not acquainted with the term Sanskrit term "sadhana", which, as a Google search uncovers (to the extent that internet searches are correct), is derived from the Sanskrit root "sadh"=bring about, and means something like, and I paraphrase, "spiritual discipline or path; the daily practices one observes to calm the Monkey-Mind (the natural, quite restless, state of man’s mind)". You are right Shustra, that World Peace has no chance against Monkey Mind, and that in order to see progress globally, one must start locally. There’s a maxim that goes, and again I paraphrase, "To tell how you are progressing spiritually, take a look at your relationships." It’s quite obvious that if everyone had the mind of Jesus (pre-crucifiction), or Buddha, or Moses, or Mohammed, then World Peace would naturally come about.

So I revise my first-ever blog, if I may (according to Dale Carnegie’s 1936 seminal classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, one may and should admit one’s mistakes). My revised first-ever blog is as follows: Sandra Bullock is still right; World Peace still should be on everyone’s mind; but  until we as individuals get our heads out of the gutter, until we arm ourselves with means for self-realization, until we bombard ourselves with spiritual ideals and realize that the Earth is one, that people of all religions, faiths, colors, genders, sexual preferences, and whatever other distinctions one chooses to mention, are no different from a birds-eye-view…well, until then, until then, until then…until then, Shurik will keep writing his blog and meditating on all that is good.

And I hope you will join me too!

–Shurik

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 16th, 2005 at 11:14 am and is filed under Books, Current Affairs, Religion, Science, Web/Tech, Weblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.