Nobility

The 10 day classes taking place here in Mysore began on Saturday, having just arrived yesterday (Tuesday) we joined the small & intimate group of well wishers. Each class begins with Ganapathi’s divine voice filling the room, then Ācārya’s words of profound wisdom, like arrows flowing directly into our hearts. His words fill our being, bringing us back HOME, softening and opening our hearts. Everything else melts away.

Sometimes I need to pinch myself as it feels like a dream! How can it be that we found our way to an unmarked building in this nondescript suburb of Mysore and are being blessed with these sublime teachings.

Today, the class focused on qualities identified in a noble person. Nobility and noble qualities are a recurring theme in Ācārya’s teachings and yet for English speaking Westerners, as is often the case, we may need to reframe our approach to the concept. The word “noble” was coined about 800 years ago and comes from the Latin to “know”, I suppose, used in the meaning of “well-known”; it became synonymous with the land-owning, educated, upper classes – i.e. the nobility. I like to think that once upon a time, the nobility may have indeed exemplified noble qualities by virtue of their education and privileged status. However today, to a large degree, the “nobility” have been discredited as (at best) irrelevant and quaint, or (at worst) hypocritical, self-indulgent and self-serving! Ācārya clarifies that the word used for nobility or a noble person in this subhashita is “mahātma” meaning a great soul or a great person or (back to pinching myself) a Realized human-being. A Realized human-being, Ācārya shares, will embody the following qualities:

When wealth is established there will be no misuse of it, whether the wealth be in the dimension of health, land, knowledge, fame or money – whatever it might be, a Realized will not cause problems by it, through the use of his/her discriminating knowledge.

When knowledge in any field is established it will evolve together with humility.

When power is established in any dimension it will be used with politeness.

It is of course regrettable that today, for the most part, the opposite is true – wealth is misused, knowledge and arrogance go together like a horse and carriage, and power is wielded ruthlessly. Whilst there is some consolation in that we can all think of someone, whether in personal or public life that to some degree manifests the above noble qualities, for me the big takeaway was the objective reminder in a small suburb of Mysore that there are Realized human beings in the world today, we can learn to identify them, honor them and achieve Realization ourselves.