Sant Kabir says – “Sadhu aisa chahiye jaisa soop subhay, saar saar ko gahi rahey thotha deyi udaay” Meaning, he is a ‘sadhu’ who like the winnow separates the grain from the chaff; in other words, he who discards all that is unnecessary and keeps back only the meaningful. India has been a land of seers and saints, sadhus and fakirs, gurus and swamis since times immemorial. If you thought that their number would have dwindled in the 21st century, where religion does not occupy the prominent place it did centuries ago, you are mistaken. However, there is a perceptible difference between the holy men of yore and the majority of the saffron robed god-men of today. From all that we read from our history, it seems that most of the saintly men in the past were genuine seekers who tread the right path themselves and also tried to take others along this path. So many of today’s ‘swamis’ are either downright con-men or start on the right path but lose the way. There would be quite a few true men of God, but as they say ‘once bitten, twice shy’ - we are now wary of them all. We are not able to distinguish between the true and the fake. Many of them get into the news for all the wrong reasons; so naturally, we are hesitant to approach any of them. But does the fault lie only with the ‘god-men’? Aren’t we also to blame, we who bestow on them the power to make fools out of us. We have so many problems in our life, so much of sorrow, disease, heart-break, guilt, that we are always in search of a panacea; we want a quick-fix remedy for our troubles and surrendering to one who has renounced the world looks like the much sought after elixir. Their soothing talk makes perfect sense to us who are troubled. Listening to these holy men is not the cause of the problem. When we read a book, we appreciate its fine points, without checking if the author is really a good person. Similarly when a ‘swami’ gives a discourse, and we find something good in it, we will only gain by applying those principles in our life, regardless of whether he follows them or not. Where we go wrong is, we … [Read more...]