Philosophers just cannot bear to see you happy. Or so it appears, going by the fact that anything that makes you happy is prominent on their list of things that you should never do. It is like they exist only to rain copiously on your parade. And, yet, the problem is that once they say something, the dratted advice sticks like a burr in your brain and does not allow you to go about your merry way, ignoring the itch.
Like, Tiru says this...
Viyavarkka ennyaandrum thannai nayavarkka nadri payavaa vinai - Tirukkural
Indulge not in self-praise nor do anything that does not yield benefits - Loose Translation
So, there you go. You are not even allowed to pat yourself on your own back. Of course, it hardly requires saying that doing things that yield no benefits is idiotic but...I mean, a lot of times people DO do things that yield no benefit to their organisation or their families or their community. AND they do such things just to show that they CAN do such things. I mean, like, think of Tiru's times. We are talking of kings and the like and they WERE prone to doing things just to show off.
I think that this Kural is not rambling, like it seems at first sight. It is not a couple of unrelated pieces of advice - about not praising yourself and not doing useless things - bunged into one couplet just to make it a couplet. No, I think that the advice is about not getting too enamoured of yourself and doing things of no use to the community merely to show off your own wealth/power/whatever.
To feel pride in your achievements where the achievements are assessed based on completion of legitimate goals desired by the community is probably not what Tiru is railing against. When you set yourself above the community, feel that you are indispensable, and throw your weight around...THEN Tiru gets in the way of your joy.
But, then, in this day and age, if you do not blow your trumpet loud and often who will even know you exist?
No comments:
Post a Comment