What should change? Man or Culture??

To feel Love is easy, to define love is difficult indeed. If you ask a fish what the sea is like, the fish will say, ”This is the sea. The sea is all around. And that’s that.” But if you insist – ”Please define the sea” – then the problem becomes very difficult indeed.

The finest and the most beautiful things in life can be lived, can be known, but they are difficult to define, difficult to describe.

Man’s misery is this: for the last four to five thousand years he has simply talked and talked about something he should have been living earnestly, about something that must be realized from within– about love. There have been great talks on love, countless love songs have been sung, and devotional hymns are continuously being chanted in the temples and in the churches – what all isn’t done in the name of love? – still there is no place for love in man’s life. If we delve deeply into

mankind’s languages, we will not find a more untrue word than ”love”.

All the religions carry on about love, but the kind of love that is found everywhere, the kind of love that has enveloped man like some hereditary misfortune has only succeeded in closing all the gates to

love in man’s life. But the masses worship the leaders of the religions as the creators of love. They have falsified love; they have blocked all love’s streams.

The stream of love has not yet surfaced in man. And we attribute this to man himself. We say it is because man is spoiled that love has not evolved, that there is no current of love in our lives. We

blame it on the mind; we say the mind is poisonous. The mind is not poison. Those who degrade the mind have poisoned love; they have not allowed the growth of love. Nothing in this world is poison.

Nothing is bad in God’s whole creation; everything is nectar. It is man alone who has transformed this full cup of nectar into poison. And the major culprits are the so-called teachers, the so-called holy men and saints, the politicians.

The ironical thing is that we have blindly accepted the reasons for this from the very same sources that are to blame for love’s not dawning on the human horizon in the first place. If misleading principles are repeated and reiterated down the centuries we fail to see the basic fallacies behind the original principles. And then chaos is created, because man is intrinsically incapable of becoming what these unnatural rules say he should become. We simply accept that man is wrong.

In ancient times, a hawker of hand-fans used to pass by the palace of the king every day. He used to brag about the unique and wonderful fans he sold. No one, he claimed, had ever seen such fans before.

The king had a collection of all sorts of fans from every corner of the world and so he was curious.

He leaned over his balcony one day to have a look at this seller of unique and wonderful fans. To him the fans looked ordinary, hardly worth a penny, but he called the man upstairs anyway. The king

asked, ”What is the uniqueness of those fans? And what is their price?”

The hawker replied, ”Your Majesty, they don’t cost much. Considering the quality of these fans, the price is very low: one hundred rupees a fan.”

The king was amazed. ”One hundred rupees! This paisa-fan, this penny-fan, is available anywhere in the market. And you ask a hundred rupees! What is so special about these fans?”

The man said, ”The quality! Each fan is guaranteed to last one hundred years. Even in one hundred years, it won’t spoil.”

”From the look of it, it seems impossible it can even last a week. Are you trying to cheat me? Is this outright fraud? And with the king, too?”

The vendor answered, ”My Lord, would I dare? You know very well, sir, that I walk under your balcony daily, selling my fans. The price is one hundred rupees a fan, and I am responsible if it doesn’t last one hundred years. Every day I am available in the street. And, above all, you are the ruler of this land. How can I be safe if I cheat you?”

The fan was purchased at the asking price. Although the king did not trust the hawker, he was dying of curiosity to know what grounds the man had for making such a statement. The vendor was ordered to present himself again on the seventh day.

The central stick came out in three days, and the fan disintegrated before the week was out.

The king was sure the seller of fans would never turn up again, but to his complete surprise the man presented himself as he had been asked to – on time, on the seventh day. ”At your service, Your Majesty.”

The king was furious. ”You rascal! You fool! Look. There lies your fan, all broken into pieces. This is its condition in a week, and you guaranteed it would last a hundred years! Are you mad, or just a supercheat?”

The man replied humbly, ”With due respect, it seems My Lord does not know how to use fans. The fan must last for one hundred years; it is guaranteed. How did you fan?”

The king said, ”My goodness. Now I will have to learn how to fan too!”

”Please don’t be angry. How did the fan come to this fate in just seven days? How did you fan?” The king lifted the fan, showing the manner in which one fans.

The man said, ”Now I understand. You shouldn’t fan like that.”

”What other way is there?” the king asked.

The man explained, ”Hold the fan steady. Keep it steady in front of you and then move your head to and fro. The fan will last one hundred years. You will pass away but the fan will remain intact.

Nothing is wrong with the fan; the way you fan is wrong. You keep the fan steady and move your head. Where is my fan at fault? The fault is yours, not that of my fan.”

Mankind is accused of a similar fault. Look at humanity. Man is so sick, sick from the accumulated illness of five, six, ten thousand years. It is repeatedly said that it is man who is wrong, not the culture. Man is rotting, yet the culture is praised. Our great culture! Our great religion! Everything is great! And see the fruits of it!

They say, ”Man is wrong; man should change himself,” yet no one stands up to question whether things aren’t like they are because our culture and religion, unable to fill man with love after ten

thousand years, are based on false values. And if love hasn’t evolved in the last ten thousand years, take it from me there is no future possibility, based on this culture and religion, of ever seeing a loving

man. Something which could not be achieved in the last ten thousand years cannot be attained in the next ten thousand years. Today’s man will be the same tomorrow. Although the outer wrappings of etiquette, civilization and technology change from time to time, man is the same and will be the same forever.