He was regular with reading since an early age. He had no
particular choice of what he would pick to read. Some magazines and newspapers
were in routine. For others, a careful scan of the ‘print’ would make for his
decision. Once, into the written work, if it clicked, he went to finish it with
full joy of reading.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
Now, as he reflects back, he sees it as one of the
formative processes of his being, for it inspired him to think independently of
what he read and write his thoughts on the issues he thought over; he thinks
over.
In the process, when he was still in college, he picked up
a magazine on Osho, found it interesting, and went on reading it. The reading
of magazines pushed him to read more on Osho. Along with the magazine, he found
some books. The Osho reading went on almost for a year.
Yes, interesting it was. But he could not come to like it.
But he never reasoned about it. The continued reading for almost a year was
more about reading something unorthodox and thinking over it.
Meanwhile, he started reading Swami Vivekananda. It
happened so that he visited a Ramkrishna Mission hospital. At the entrance of
the hospital he saw a book shop selling Vedanta and other cultural and
spiritual literature. While leaving the hospital, he gave a visit to the book
shop. The visit took more than an hour. He read some pages of some books and decided
to pick some by Swami Vivekananda.
Swami Vivekananda is known globally for his spiritual
views and for resurrecting the pride of Indian spiritual heritage. He, too, was having this image of Swamiji
when he picked up the books from that shop. But it was going to be his first
serious reading of Swamiji.
As he started reading Swamiji, he found him more and more
drawn towards reading him even more. Moreover, he found an instant liking.
This happened while he was still reading Osho. Swamiji and
Osho, both delved deeper into the spiritual practices like Yoga and Meditation.
But as he read more of Swamiji, he found many pointers of contradictions in
Osho’s viewpoint. When the contradictions created many layers, he stopped
reading Osho.
Reading a text has to be a text-reading. Try to be as
objective as you can be. If you read something, try not to be trapped in its
environs, be it negative or positive in the worldly means. Read the work in the
context of its writing plot but if you have to think over it, never allow its
context to influence yours. He thought so. He thinks so. He believes so.
While reading Osho, he never thought to follow him. It had
not happened to him with any other written work yet. Also, he had made it a
point for him to follow earnestly. He still follows this sell-evolved
principle.
But Swamiji was the one who became a natural exception to
this principle. He read and rewrote his words. He tried to follow his
teachings. He came to know his limitations in following them.
But if the inclination to follow Swamiji came to him
naturally, equally spontaneous was the fact that he never felt dominated by his
teachings. He tried to follow all of his teachings initially but realized he
could not. And he never felt sorry for it.
He doesn’t feel sorry about it for, he knows reading
Swamiji is still about the ‘Process’ in his life.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
