The Gallery of Empty Noise - II

In Part I, we saw them.

People speak, talk, mock and then forget. Shallow inside, so they talk shallow. Monkeys jumping from one branch to another. No creativity, no economy of thought — only reaction. Their confidence depends on putting someone down.

Now see the next layer of the game.

They themselves are the noise pollution. Day and night — gossip, mocking, loud opinions, empty chatter. Their whole existence is noise.

And yet they have the guts to abuse others for causing noise pollution. Interesting! 

That is the pompousness of society.

Krishnamurti says it right — Tolerance is the civilised acceptance of a division between people – politically, religiously and socially.

Society is pompous because it does this. It creates a thousand galleries — my religion, my community, my method, my group — each one noisy, each one shallow. And then from inside its own noisy gallery, it points fingers and says "You are the noise."

We tolerate this hypocrisy and call ourselves civilised. Why should we tolerate them? Am I tolerating them? Not at all. I am countering them everyday in my own way. But my way is different. Of course, I will not use their way. It's like jumping in the mud. This is what they actually want. 

The truth is, the accuser is the polluter. The mocker is insecure. As Krishnamurti said, insecurity is the nature of things. Their mocking is just a wall they built against their own insecurity.

Don't give them cement. Let their own noise deafen them, and walk out...

The Gallery of Empty Noise

People speak, people talk, people mock and then they forget. They are idiots of their own type. Shallow inside, so they talk shallow.

They have nothing to think about, nothing meaningful to speak, nothing to align their thoughts to their actions. Just monkeys jumping from one branch to another. It's their speciality — they spend years mastering it.

They are only looking for moments to get their dopamine release, because they have no creativity, no creative expression. No economy of thought, no politics of principle, only reaction.

Still, they have a special confidence — a confidence that actually depends on others. Put someone down, feel up. That is their business model.

Let them be creatures of their own type. Does it matter? No, not at all. It hardly matters. They are poor inside.

Who are they? Nothing. Just parasites who need our reaction, and when they don't get it, they collapse.

Krishnamurti was right — insecurity is the nature of things. Their mocking is just a wall they built against their own insecurity. Don't give it cement.

Don't give them cement. Let the wall fall on its own.

The Smog is in the Lens

It seems the weather has mood swings too. Morning sweats, afternoon and evening choke on dust. Politics has the same fever, changing colours faster than sky. We argue about everything — roads, air, rules, taxes, budgets — loudly, endlessly, as if noise will fix the nation.

We say environment is toxic. We say economy is fragile. We check AQI, we check water, we check Sensex, we check petrol price, we check headlines. We never check the filter inside our own head. That filter is the dirtiest.

We love queues everywhere. Actually it is not queue, it is chaos. Registers, approvals, subsidies, signatures — such chaos gives us a stage, someone to watch, someone to whisper about, someone to judge.

If someone opens an umbrella for another in this heat, we do not see shade. We see scandal. If someone offers help, we invent a story. We make kindness look guilty.

If every open hand looks suspicious to you, the smog is not outside your window. The slowdown is not only in GDP. Both live inside your glasses.

Clean your lens. The city and country will breathe better for a much longer time.

What I Witnessed While Returning From Maa Kali Temple Today

While returning from the Maa Kali temple today, I witnessed something that left me deeply unsettled.

It began as a verbal argument on the street. When I saw, two girls were beating and slapping a young boy — he couldn’t have been more than 5'2", and from his appearance, seemed to be a labourer. Then a healthy boy from girls' side came started abusing and beating him badly. I parked my Scooter, told my wife and son to stay at a safe distance, and stepped forward to enquire from the bystanders about what had happened but before I could fully understand, two-three more tall boys, around my height (5'10"), came and started abusing that labourer and beating him badly.

It quickly turned from a confrontation into one-sided violence.

Sensing he could be badly injured, I tried to pacify those tall boys, telling them to get the matter resolved and not resort to physical abuse. They kept beating. So I pulled the small man out of their clutches and put him aside to ensure his safety.

What struck me most was his reaction. Even in that state, the poor man was more concerned about his Activa and his slippers than his own injuries. I told him to first save himself, the rest the gym boys would manage.

I sincerely thank the gym boys and some shop owners who immediately came to save him. It was just because of them that we were able to save the poor man.

I am not writing this to judge who was right or wrong in the initial argument — I did not see the beginning. But I am writing this because of what it became, and it is something very disappointing.

When does a disagreement give us the right to become a mob? When did we stop seeing a person and start seeing only an opportunity to display dominance? He was beaten and dominated all because he was weak. And the most disturbing part was not just the beating, but the ease with which a verbal argument turned into collective cruelty.

And yet, there was hope — in strangers who chose to intervene instead of just watching.

I had gone to pray for strength. Today I was reminded: real strength is not in beating someone down, it is in pulling someone out.

Now while I am writing all this just a small thought tweaked in my mind, "Why I helped that poor boy?"

"Why I risked my life as I have lumbar issues?"

When Education Forgot the Hands

June 25, 2014, Flashback

"We had adopted the liberal model of education in which we gave much preference to knowledge and neglected the importance of skills... we scissor the importance of the dignity of labour and the teachings of Lord Krishna and Shri Guru Nanak Dev." 

— Sudhir Singh

Twelve years later, this flashback feels less like a memory and more like a prophecy.

We did exactly what I already talked about. We built an education system that taught our children how to describe work, but not how to do work. Degrees became more valuable than dexterity. A child who could write a 500-word essay on a carpenter was considered more educated than the carpenter himself!

And the biggest adversity is that no one wants to do menial work anymore.

Not because the work is undignified, but because we made education undignified for work. We taught productivity as a PowerPoint slide, not as sweat on the forehead.

This is where we cut ourselves off from our own roots:

1. Lord Krishna as the Karmayogi: In the Gita, Krishna never glorifies mere contemplation. He glorifies nishkam karma - skilled, dedicated action. Arjuna was not asked to just read about archery, he was asked to pick up the Gandiva and fight.

2. Shri Guru Nanak Dev as the Kirti Karni: "Kirat Karo" i.e. earn through honest labour - was placed alongside Naam Japo and Vand Chhako. Labour was not menial; it was spiritual. The langar was not served by degrees, it was served by hands.

Our old, skill-based model of education understood this. The liberal model we adopted replaced the Aashrams based on pragmatic approach with the classroom, and the guru with the textbook. Yes, now textbooks are more important than the Guru because their first responsibility is to complete syllabus. Syllabus!

Today, as India talks about Skill India, NEP 2020, and vocational training from Class 6, we are essentially trying to go back to what we left. We are trying to re-stitch the dignity of labour that we once scissored away.

The question I raised in 2014 remains in 2026: Will we produce well informed clerks, or will we produce those who can elevate the society to its fullest? 

But to produce the latter, we need to work on individuality first...

बुद्ध का गृह-त्याग: आलोचना से परे एक चिंतन

14 जुलाई 2025, मेरी डायरी से

कल कक्षा में एक विद्यार्थी ने बहुत मासूमियत से पूछा — "सर, क्या बुद्ध ने परिवार छोड़कर सही किया था?"

यह प्रश्न मुझे अक्सर सुनने को मिलता है। कई बार कुछ विचारक और महिला सशक्तिकरण पर कार्य करने वाले साथी भी इस प्रसंग को लेकर अपनी चिंता व्यक्त करते हैं। उनकी भावना का मैं सम्मान करता हूँ, क्योंकि उनका उद्देश्य भी संवेदनशीलता और न्याय को बढ़ावा देना ही है।

पर इस विषय पर थोड़ा गहराई से, उस समय के संदर्भ में सोचना आवश्यक लगता है।

एक राजकुमार का निर्णय

यह याद रखना महत्वपूर्ण है कि गृह-त्याग करने वाले सिद्धार्थ गौतम एक राजा के पुत्र थे। राजमहल में यशोधरा और राहुल पूरी तरह सुरक्षित थे। उन्हें किसी प्रकार के अभाव का भय नहीं था।

सिद्धार्थ ने दुःख को बहुत निकट से देखा था — वृद्धावस्था, रोग और मृत्यु। उनके मन में यह विचार गहरा होता गया कि उनके इस छोटे परिवार से परे एक बहुत बड़ा परिवार है — समाज। उन्हें लगा कि शायद उनके चिंतन और साधना से इस व्यापक दुःख का कोई समाधान निकल सके।

उस काल की सामाजिक और राजनीतिक परिस्थितियों में, एक शासक के रूप में रहते हुए इस प्रकार की आध्यात्मिक खोज संभव नहीं थी। इसलिए उन्होंने एक कठिन व्यक्तिगत निर्णय लिया।

दो पक्षों को समझने की आवश्यकता

कभी-कभी मैं सोचता हूँ — जब बुद्ध जैसे व्यक्तित्व पर भी प्रश्न उठाए गए, तो हम जैसे तो बहुत छोटे हैं। आलोचना जीवन का स्वाभाविक हिस्सा है।

मेरा मानना है कि इस प्रसंग को किसी एक दृष्टिकोण से देखना उचित नहीं होगा। एक ओर सिद्धार्थ की सत्य की खोज थी, तो दूसरी ओर यशोधरा का धैर्य और त्याग भी था। उन्होंने भी अपने पति को सत्य की खोज के लिए जाने की अनुमति दी — इसमें भी एक प्रकार की आंतरिक शक्ति झलकती है।

महिला सशक्तिकरण के विमर्श में हम यदि यशोधरा के इस धैर्य और समझ को भी स्थान दें, तो चर्चा और भी समृद्ध हो सकती है।

निष्कर्ष

बुद्ध के निर्णय को सही या गलत के खांचे में रखने के बजाय, यदि हम उसे करुणा, संदर्भ और तत्कालीन परिस्थितियों के आलोक में देखें, तो हमें अधिक स्पष्टता मिल सकती है।

उद्देश्य किसी की आलोचना करना नहीं, बल्कि एक-दूसरे के दृष्टिकोण को समझते हुए संवाद को आगे बढ़ाना है।

When Duality Vanishes: A Spiritual Existentialism

When you are in duality, you feel resentment. You preach. You become judgemental — not just towards others, but towards your own self, because you follow the old touchstone: believing yourself to be only body and mind. And here comes the real problem — you mistake the rope for a serpent.

Whose fault is it?

Perhaps no one's. We inherited old patterns — rituals without understanding, beliefs without experience, paths that began as sincere quests and slowly hardened into rigid structures. They taught us to divide the world to make sense of it: good and evil, pure and impure, us and them.

I don't reject spirituality. I question the second-hand kind. I find it painful when people label others as sinners, predict hell for them, and present themselves as examples of purity. The body, by nature, is imperfect — none of us can claim absolute purity.

Sometimes this self-righteousness may reflect deeper psychological patterns — a lack of empathy, an excessive need for validation — traits associated in psychology with narcissistic tendencies. I worry that many who appear deeply religious may be struggling with such inner wounds without realizing it. But does that mean we should hate them? No. They need understanding, and where needed, compassionate professional support.

And please, let us not use psychological terms as insults. Nowadays such words are thrown around as abuse rather than used with care, and that is disappointing.

True spirituality is not about temples, scriptures, or gurus as idols. It is about direct seeing. It is about learning the best from all traditions, yet still keeping alive the quest for one's own path.

It is existential in the deepest sense: you are here, now, alive, and no one can live this truth for you.

When duality vanishes, the Self flourishes — not as a religious concept, but as a lived stillness. You stop needing to label every moment as good or evil, because you see they were only judgments of a frightened mind.

Such a person doesn't become indifferent. He becomes responsible. Without waiting for outer forgiveness, without escaping toward an imagined heaven, he creates meaning here — in how he acts, how he loves, how he remains still in movement.

Break the old pattern of borrowed belief. Welcome the new way of inner inquiry.