bura sada kehlaayaa jag mein,
बांका, मद-चंचल प्याला,
baankaa, mad-chanchal pyaalaa,
छैल-छबीला, रसिया साकी,
chhail-chhabeelaa, rasiya saakee,
अलबेला पीनेवाला;
albelaa peenewaalaa;
पटे कहाँ से, मधुशाला औ',
pate kahaan se, madhushaalaa au'
जग की जोड़ी ठीक नहीं -
jag kee jodee theek nahin -
जग जर्जर प्रतिदिन, प्रतिक्षण, पर
jag jarjar pratidin, pratikshan, par
नित्य नवेली मधुशाला
nitya navelee madhushaalaa
The genuine person is usually very difficult to live with. He flaunts conventional wisdom, and does not play by the rules. He loves life, and shuns ideology, so the world calls him all sorts of names. It will make fun of him; but there's nothing anyone can do about it. The way of life and the way of the world are at loggerheads; and while the world decays every instant, it's always new and fresh at the tavern.
This is a very thought-provoking verse. Is the way of the world, with its conventions, ideas and divisive organizations, "normal"? Are the iconoclasts, the thought leaders, "abnormal"?
When you look back at history, people who broke with the conventional religious practices of their times were the real revolutionaries who created change for the better! Whether it was Jesus Christ or the Buddha, they broke with the practice of religion during their times, because they had decayed into orthodoxy, as most organized religions do.
In my mind, this is inevitable. Whenever you build an organization, the survival and furtherance of the organization will inevitably take precedence over the purpose for which it was created. That is why organizations always decay in the long term.
Personally, I have tried very hard in my life to not be part of any organization or idea, and have tried not to form one. I am not a patriot, but hopefully, a citizen of the world. I belong to no organized religion, for religion is very important to me. I have paid, and continue to pay the price for it - I am thought of as a sort of bizarrely intelligent eccentric, and mildly foolish. That has always been of the way of the world - it mocks what it does not understand.
Having said that, spontaneously formed groups are a good thing....this post is sent to five groups that I belong to, and which have stood the test of time because no specific attempt is made to keep the groups alive. They are a spontaneous gathering of a group of people - very different, but brought together for a variety of reasons. Each one is a new group everyday, and thus makes them the "nitya naveli madhushala".
Formal organizations always become stale....human contact, especially human contact in the spirit of love, are always fresh.
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