Margaritas ante porcos

It is said that eyes only see what the mind is able to comprehend. The guru doesn’t appear until the disciple is ready.

There’s an anecdote of an interesting meeting between the popular anti-guru U.G. Krishnamurti, who derided everything holy & a profound yogi of recent times, Ramana Maharshi. This is from his memoirs : 

In 1939, when U.G. was 21 years of age, he went and met Sri Ramana Maharshi and asked him, "This thing called moksha [liberation], can you give it to me?" Ramana replied, "I can give it, but can you take it?" struck him like a "thunderbolt" and set him up on a relentless search for Truth that ended at the age of 49 with a totally unforeseen result.

Let me dissect this a bit. Unless one is prepared, one can’t handle the truth - the ultimate truth, that is. From a yogic standpoint, it requires a lot of preparation from an aspirant to attain the goal. It’s a lifetime of an effort. People who have gone searching for shortcuts have been beaten so badly. The symbolism of kundalini to a snake is very pertinent. Unless one knows how to handle it, one will be bitten badly and will suffer for the same.

There is one anecdote from Ancient Greece - that of philosopher Plotinus and his disciple Amelius. It’s from John Dillon’s book “Prayer and contemplation in the Neoplatonic and Sufi traditions”.

If it turns now abruptly to Plotinus, we can find from his pen or his lips scathing condemnations of what one might characterize as the ‘popular’ attitude to prayer - an attitude fully shared, it must be said, by contemporary Christians, whom he probably has in mind. First, there is his notorious response to his senior disciple Amelius, as reported by Porphyry, when Amelius invited him to accompany him on a sort of Temple-crawl, at the festival of the new moon: ‘The gods ought to come to me, not I to them’. ‘ what he meant by this exalted utterance, we could not understand and did not dare to ask’ says Porphyry. A Possible interpretation, surely, However, is that our relations with Gods should be based, Not on our going out of our way to solicit them for favors which we have not made an effort to deserve, but rather on our making ourselves ready, by the practice of spiritual exercises to receive their beneficial power. It is not the expression of impious or arrogant attitude to the gods; merely a properly Platonist one. We cannot except the gods to help us, maintains Plotinus if we are not prepared to help ourselves.

After the sacred, let’s come to the mundane: margaritas ante porcos literally translates into pearl before swine. The value of anything is apportioned by only the one who is capable of recognizing it. The entire idea of value is dependent on the beholder. This is applicable to so many things – knowledge, relationship, information, etc,.

There are two implications from this: First, we should be ready in all possible ways before wishing and realizing something; the second, we may be searching for great people but we may as well miss the great and exceptional people amongst us. 

Thoreau and the rebellious living

Thoreau lived a couple of years of his life away from the people, alone — minimalistic kind, like a hermit in the woods. Out of that experience, he was able to write “Walden”. When I heard about it the first time, I was equally stumped and impressed at the same time.

People disappoint you. That’s a given. Even the ones you think never will disappoint you. They say not to expect — that’s not possible and you know it. You should be either a real sage or a person in a comatose state to not expect anything. Relationships build expectation — in fact, relationships are built on expectations — big or small and is a continuous transaction. Over a period of time, they change. How one handles, fulfills or fails in handling or fulfilling the expectations decides what direction the relationship takes. That’s why relationships are a complicated affair.

Also, most of the people — even the ones that you love or those who love you are judgemental. There are few or if you are lucky enough a very few people who see and accept you the way you are. Mother Nature doesn't judge anyone. It embraces all. It is neither caring nor cruel, it just is. That's the beauty of nature.

Perhaps it’s a trade-off we all make — putting up with various disappointments, innumerable heartbreaks, the fakery of the so-called ‘civilized world’ just to be accepted. Then, there are various masks we don just to get along with the ways of the world. 

All of us would have our own moment of 'running away from the world' — away from the drama, heartbreaks, judgments, disappointments marooned and cocooned all by ourselves. Jiddu Krishnamurti had a very different take on this topic and it's difficult to summarize a man like Krishnamurti; So, here's what he had to say on the topic

Thoreau did not run away from the world — he had rather chosen to make a radical change in his lifestyle. He perhaps lived like what Camus said — The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.