Thursday, May 26, 2016

Wanted Heart Transformation Technology

Hare Krsna!

In this golden age of technology and software engineering, we tend to forget easily the risks civilization faces due to the myths we have bought into:

1) Money (or more things) is equivalent to happiness
2) Technology gratification effectively replaces the pleasures of gazing at a sunrise and a flowing river 
3) Weapons bring security
4) The earth provides virtually unlimited resources for our exploitation
5) The earth provides limitless room for waste disposal after we've done exploiting


The world is in desperate of technology and technologists to transform hearts of people to look beyond the ephemeral.  I was touched by an article in a book called Journey WIthin by HH Radhanath Swami.  I recommend that you purchase the book and read it.

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Excerpt:

I'd like share  a story that shows even during one of the most savage and heartbreaking periods in world history, helpless people surrounded by cruelty, torture and death chose to see an opportunity to connect with grace.

This story was told to me by one of my dearest friends. His father had been an officer in the Nazi SS. He was dispatched on murderous missions and helped to manage concentration camps. From time to time, one of his fellow officers noticed something peculiar. Outside the walls of a gas chamber, in a holding tank, were drawing of butterflies.  What did they mean?

His curiosity was aroused. Finally, he asked a condemned Jew about it. The tortured, emaciated victim gazed own at the filthy, bloodstained floor, shook his head in grief and said nothing. Then he looked up and directly into the eyes of his captor, his face shining with hope. In a whisper he revealed the secret of the butterfly.

A caterpillar crawls in the dirt, eats debris, and at moment can be trampled to death or eaten alive by birds. Then the struggling little insect is imprisoned in a cocoon. But through that  ordeal, the caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly, free to fly in the open sky. It then lives on a diet of pure nectar.


"Some of us believe," the Jewish prisoner told the Nazi, "that despite all your cruelties through our faith in God, our souls will be liberated, into a land of freedom where we will drink nectar from the flowers of God's grace. And you will suffer for your atrocities when our suffering is over."

The officer was taken aback. When my friend's father heard this story from his fellow officer, the bubble of propaganda he and his nation had been fed about how Jews are dangerous subhumans burst. He suddenly saw his own insanity in having bought into such an idea and what he had done in service to the Gestapo. He realized that the people he was murdering were special, sensitive people with profound insight, and for the rest of his life experienced horrific nightmares and felt a bitter repentance.

His son, like so many other Germans of his generation, rebelled against his parents' ignorance and searched frantically for meaning and truth. Eventually he found the path of bhakti. He and I are best friends. He is the son of a murderer of Jews, and I am the son o a Jew whose uncles, aunts, and cousins were torutred and exterminated by the Nazis. But our hearts are one in affection.

We need to rise above the atrocities of the world. Like-minded, caring people can unite beyond sectarian issues and call out for real change based on the real self. In whatever role you find yourself --- mother, father, politician, farmer, entertainer, shopkeeper, industrialist, student, priest or atheist --- listen for the call to open and cleanse your heart and to share the wealth of truth with the world by your words and example. The world craves such leadership.  The GIta ( 3.21) says, "Whatever action a great person performs, common ones follow. And whatever standards they set by exemplary acts, all the world pursues."

Become an enlightened leader. Be active in the world, but rise above all selfish misconceptions  by choosing to keep the roots of your values sheltered in the soil of integrity and grace.



*****

The underlying teachings of India's peace message have the best chance for promoting universal brotherhood in the world.


Sincerely
Sudhakar