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Introduction
Bunch Of Thoughts
M.S. Golwalkar
Part Four - Moulding Men
XXXV. Be Man With Capital ‘M’
Be foundation-stones - Ideal of service - Self-reliance; glowing examples - Curse of careerism - Choosing the right ideal - Avoid two extremes - Serve nation - Shake off inferiority complex, cheap imitations - Secret of world respect; our past heroes - Past tradition - What Mother wants.
Once, while I was conversing with a great Sadhu, the subject of frequent student strikes came up. The Sadhu remarked, "This is the bitter fruit of dinning into the ears of students by our leaders that they are the pillars of the nation, the leaders of tomorrow and so on. This, coupled with their natural immaturity, has made them swollen-headed. The right attitude to be inculcated in the young minds is of selfless service, where ego has no chance to raise its ugly head. Calling them 'pillars', 'future leaders' and all that has only roused their ego which makes them rise in revolt and indulge in strikes and violence at the slightest touch of injustice or insult, imaginary or otherwise."
Listening to those wise words of the Sadhu, I remembered an incident in the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Once some of his disciples were talking about helping the poor, showing compassion to them and so on. Sri Ramakrishna came there in a God-intoxicated mood and admonished them saying, "Who are you to show compassion to them? Who are you to help them? They are the living manifestations of Narayana himself. So you can only serve them".
Be A Foundation - Stone
This attitude will generate in us the spirit of true selfless service and take us a long way in giving purity, humility and strength to our character and save us from swollen-headedness, which is the first step to degeneration. Let the stone in the foundation be our ideal. It lies there unseen, unadmired. It may not be beautiful, may not be polished; but all the same it is the base. If it moves or is shaken, the whole edifice crumbles down. More important than the central dome, more important than anything else, is that stone in the foundation. However, the stone remains there as a symbol of self-oblivious service and self-effacement. That should be the spirit with which we have to work among the people. The desire to strut about in the limelight of name and fame, to shine at the top only betrays one's lack of inner worth and weakness for self-adulation. After all, what is great about sitting at the top? Even a crow can sit at the top of a dome!
Author : M. S. Golwalkar
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