Two days ago my two children and I were invited to dinner at the home of my friend Mr. Mahadevan who lives on the fourth floor below us,{we are on the twelve floor.} It was a vegetarian affair and also present was an Indian former school teacher with his 27 year old son. The gentleman is said to be a Reiki Teacher and according to my friend the Prof. as he is a professor at the the University Sains Malaysia, a mystique man. To me my friend the prof. is more so of a mystique man than most as he has the charm and humbleness of one who has the knowledge and charm of a real Guru. While chatting away I noticed a book on his shelf entitled DEATH - An Inside Story written by Sadhguru and immediately I knew I had to borrow the book. I became acquainted with the teachings of Sadhguru a few years back, two if I am not mistaken when i stumbled upon him on You Tube. I was impressed by his teachings but lost interest after a while when I found that he was another Hindu master spreading Hinduism rather than a Universal Teacher who transcend all religions, my poor excuse. I also had a problem with the manner in which he presents himself which often struck me as an attempt at being flamboyant and somewhat condescending when he speaks, again my bad. I have grown up among Indians in this country and as a matter of fact my Grand Uncle married a Hindu and his children, my aunts and uncles all four of them are all Hindus. As a child i grew up visiting them at their home in the Methodist Boys School where my Grand Uncle was a caretaker until the day he died. hew as known to us as Martin Sia and was the younger brother of my grandfather. The two brothers went their separate ways when my grandfather married a Muslim and was converted to Islam and my Granduncle remained a Buddhist.
The eldest of my grand uncle's children was Ranjan and had passed away a few years back having suffered from Parkinson's disease, he was younger than me although he was my uncle.. Then there is Kamala, Susila and the youngest boy Sugananda. I used to visit the Hindu temples in and around the Georgetown area with Ranjan and assisted him on his Kavadi trip during the Thaipusam once a upon a time when I returned to Malaysia from the U.S. as part my university program, sometime in 1981? I was able to document the whole ritual from the beginning to the end and later presented it to the University in my lecture presentations with the slides I took of the event. It blew the minds of the Green Bay university students who saw the slide show. I was no stranger to Hinduism as my father who was a Goldsmith working for a major jewelry company here was commissioned by the Chetiars to create a one foot tall solid gold statue of Lord Murugan that till this day is paraded from the Little India Hindu Temple all the way to the hill temple in the Botanical Gardens annually during the Thaipusam day. There's a story to this journey, perhaps some other time. My favorite Hindu Deity has always been Lord Ganesha, the elephant headed one. I will always pay my respect whenever i come upon His presence and this too has a personal story attached to it and somewhere in this lengthy Blog I might have told this story and it has to do with the day my first son was born and what day it was.\
I realized that my communication skills has still got to be polished when I was with the beautiful group of host and guest at the dinner, I found myself trying too hard to get my message across turning others off. I have learned that most others have their fixed personality after years of being a teacher or a director like my twin brother and they put forth their status in life when addressing others like don't teach me as i was once a school teacher or I am a director so don't come telling me any better. Letting go of their status is no easy thing to do even when they are in the company of strangers, like you cannot teach a duck how to swim. So I did not really learn much from the Reiki master as he claimed to be and I should have focused on what is Reiki instead of trying to share my own perception of what being on a spiritual journey entails. There is also my own error of judging racial or cultural character like when in conversation with an Indian or a Chinese assuming that they have their own inherit nature in self expression. In this case and Indian man does not like being made to feel like he is being taught a lesson in life by a non Hindu. However i have grown up among these characters and most of them do have their own idiosyncrasies when putting forth their thoughts and ideas that is inherent to their culture. I was a little disappointed and I believe or felt that so was the other guest at the dinner. The things you learn when in the company of strangers tells much about who you are is what I learned from this event.
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