musings 82

If an institution and its basic structure are not guarded, protected and nurtured and the financial and ethical capital for long term maintenance and upkeep is not ensured, then the institution will die..

Then no one can have the celebrations, fun,devotion or anything..

If that happens to our temples Hinduism will lose its spirit completely..

The specialty of Hindu life is that even the most mundane things are given some religious dimension which adds charm to the Hindu way of life.

Normal celebrations are quite okay..

The tendency to veer away from essentials and introducing fluff and superstitions and then throwing to winds the material parts and in the long run retaining only the peripherally flashy and superficial aspects.. and in due course, such nonsense replacing the sacred religious rituals and practices.. that is the danger we are facing..

Secondly people used to fear God.. even if it is a stone idol..

But nowadays, that fear is not much seen..

Some cultural activities, some fun and frolic along with core religious rituals and practices in place should be good..

And God and temple should not become sources or avenues for vested interests..

The erosion in money value is unbelievably huge.. If one does not add every year at least ten to fifteen percent to the capital base of the institution, it will not be possible to maintain its day to day affairs at least on an even keel..

We should always look at the institution or deity as a permanent one although we the people and administrators would vanish or die..

So our idea should be to leave the institutions in a flourishing manner,, at least at the level where we started it..

We can afford to be spendthrifts at individual level..

But when we maintain a perennial institution, our ideas should be formed with a vision extending to thousands of years..

Of course, with all care and concern, we might fail..

But that does not mean we can fritter away the public resources..

The administrator of an institution should have as his first priority the short term and long term healthy maintenance of the institution..

The employees, and other interested persons may be of great help and their welfare too should be looked after, no doubt,

but such care should be very much within the resource structure and long term capital structure of the institution.

We tend to add many more avenues for expenditure in a shortsighted way..

and we can land up in blind ends.. And often the temptation then would be to eat into the capital..

That means ruin.

The Charvakas and Kanaadaas believed that there is no life other than this life which we live here..

Individual happiness and celebration is all that is required..

They believed like Omar khayyam that eat, drink and be merry ..

Drink ghee and eat well and sell everything for that .. says Kanada..

Individuals can do that..

But not institutions..