friends it is nice to start this katha on sri ramakrishna now you see the word katha kind of
conjures up an image of trying to do the stories about puranic tales legendary ancient tales the
word you're going to hear is a contemporary katha a modern narrative now it's very important to
recognize the the use of narratives when you're talking about very subtle ideas like spirituality
you see without the narrative without the story format however good the philosophy
may be it becomes dry and you feel that you are chewing on dry you know straw it becomes tiresome
a story allows you to kind of bring in lovely marvelous ideas of spirituality in a story format
this is the uni unique feature about all the katas in fact if we look at the reason why we
are attracted to say watch entertainment on television see the films the reason is this
in a way as we are human the way we can relate to humanity to ideas about anything
has to be in human terms that is why we love to watch the soap operas in a way we are living the
lives of those personalities you see through those stories that's why we get hooked to all these kind
of soap operas and television because we live in a way all of us attach ourselves to certain
characters in that particular story and live their lives so you can see the power of narrative
but it can be used or misused you see if you look at the soap operas any super eastern or western
the soap operas will focus on kind of lower human aspiration there is jealousy you know this hindi
soap opera ztv's over the clothes are out you know come on you know killed there is jealousy
this deviousness this deception so you can promote very kind of poor kind of human aspirations or
lower human aspirations through narratives and that still hooks you in the same narrative the
power of narratives you can again write the back of narratives to aspire to higher ideals
this is the power of qatar's in fact the reason why the hindu population is fixated on the qatar
is purely for this reason because when you hear the stories of rama or krishna all these various
katha's bhagavad-gita ramayana mahabharata you immediately start linking up with some of those
characters and you in a way you leave your you kind of ride on the back of those characters
to develop those characteristics in our lives we cannot borrow from them that is why katha is such
a powerful tool that the hindus have recognized and used for thousands of years to promote high
principles through stories through the stories of ramayana through the stories of mahabharat those
so it's through the stories of the bhagavad-gita marvelous ideas but again you see this is the
the power of the storytelling but one thing that is putting of the youth of modern times put them
off to the kathas is this is the katha has been told over so many thousands of years as they have
been told bits were added and bits were taken away bits were subtracted big bits were added on
this is understandable because depending on the audience the storyteller will always kind of
adjust the story to suit the needs of the audience is dealing with and if this has been happening
over thousands of years the account you get today but has had no bearing to what actually happened
it may have lost complete touch with reality and this is one of the drawbacks of qatar's because
katha sometimes have become so exaggerated that a modern youth will shy away from it saying look i
like these lovely personalities but you know some of these kind of ideas that they're conjuring up
do not match up with reality and a modern youth will of course that's why if you look at all the
katha's being shown on television and look at the camera moving with the audience there'll be hardly
any youngster only a few children playing about and the rest elderly people like me with the teeth
falling out hair falling out just about you know kind of chewing cud bit of religious entertainment
so this is kind of visible in the this is why the katas even though they are very potent as i
said the power of narrative to carry the audience on higher ideals is a very important tool that we
must use and yet because this thing has been done over thousands of years you are stuck in a rut
with just legendary stories they have become counterproductive to the needs of the modern youth
because they can't relate to it anymore they say look if you want to just talk about you know
good over evil we might as well watch star wars why should we watch hanuman anymore because the
same ideas are there except that done in modern format with all these in all these kind of gizmos
r2d2 and all the rest of them might as well go for that so why should we bother we say hanuman
and ramayana there are super stories marvelous stories but we can adopt more than once rather
than fall back on the antique ones so the modern youth will shy away and the other problem is this
the kathakas do not give a health warning to their audience especially the youth they
treat these kathas with a lot of you know use your common sense when you are interpreting the qatar's
and decide for yourself to what extent these are this is reality and to what extent is pure
narration pure pure storytelling you must make the distinction if you do not make the distinction
it will come if you like it you come in conflict with rationality common sense and science and to
really offend you it will put you away put you off religions all together so this idea
of katha is powerful but just restring yourself to things that happened thousands of years ago
and you are not really sure to what action this is historic auto attack is just made up
is becoming if you like has a limited validity in modern times and this is very visible so why
should the hindu religion you know allows this idea that you evolve with the times
as time moves on the way you relate to spirituality must be presented in
modern format it allows for evolution so why don't we evolve but you see we have problem
like all animals who want to evolve they are stuck they don't like you all that easily
they will be prodded they will be pushed you know they like to still we don't like to change all of
us are full of inertia we don't like to lose we you're stuck with inertia so you see we have to
be pushed and hopefully make further progress so you see the importance of qatar is a narrative
to put across marvelous philosophic ideas subtle ideas abstract ideas in a story format which
we can write on and try and incorporate them in our life is a very powerful tool
but do not limit yourself to just the katas or the stories that came from very ancient past
because we can't distinguish what is legendary what is reality and it puts off the youngsters
so it's necessary to produce a cathars narrative which is suited to the modern times and this is
what we are trying to do today we are going to look at a personality was as dynamic as
some of the personalities of the ancient hindus and yet who lived in modern times in our times
let me tell you a little bit more before i start actually the story the narration
you see if you look at the night sky you see the moon you see the stars you
might see a comet pass by and you say what are the how marvelous you know you wonder
in the same way when you look at the religious landscape you also discover various personalities
just like the moon which kind of is is cooling produces a cooling effect you find
giant spiritual giants who become if you like a solace of the of the scorched hearts of humanity
that if you like continue to radiate tremendous kind of calmness and coolness
that removes some of this kind of heat that we feel when we live our lives we find such
personalities we also find those little sparkling things right in the background the ancient sages
who've been twinkling the message of spirituality without making any fuss without beating any drums
which have influenced our society for thousands of years the ancient rishis the sages of india they
sparkle in the background and we get this wondrous some some wondrous personality like a comet going
over this over the horizon who come with a grand idea and kind of lit light up society for a short
time and we also find lots of fireflies you know fireflies they kind of buzz about shine shimmer
and we wonder what is happening what is moving them in the same we find these wonderful bhaktas
the devotees who also dance about sing and dance in the name of god they appear on the horizon
for a short time that they quietly disappear these are the bhaktas of the hindu tradition
these are all marvelous personalities that color the landscape of religion of india
but then once in a while we suddenly see the sky the horizon turning pink
and we see the rising sun something dramatic not only just enhancing and protecting life
but actually giving life like the sun the spiritual message that comes through from these
personalities lights up the whole of this humanity it gives life it is this if you like the fountain
head of spirituality with the world seriously needs such personalities come from time to time
and and live and you know kind of revive and refresh the powerful message of spirituality
suited to their own times we see them again and again so today we are going to do a story
of one such personality and again you know what's the uniqueness of this personality
there is nothing extraordinary i'm going to do a story in the most ordinary language
or something that is extremely extraordinary and yet appears very ordinary
the unique feature of these moon personalities is telling us don't you see the extraordinary is
intertwined with what appears as ordinary all of this appears ordinary it is charged
to the full with spirituality extraordinary hidden or appearing as ordinary so i'm going
to be very careful to present a story we just got some kind of mystical element but i'm going
to keep them low i'm going to keep it low i'm going to fly off i'm going to present this in
a very kind of simple terms in simple language but a story that is extremely
extraordinary