A poem by healingdrysuits 


Sometimes the teacher believes they are teaching
and the student believes they are learning.

Sometimes the teacher believes that they are learning
and the student believes they are teaching.

Sometimes, their eyes truly meet
and God recognizes itself,
simultaneously...finally,
egotism evaporates
hierarchy prostrates before truth
and
they both see the student
looking at them

Today is the 212th birthday of Mirza Ghalib, the timeless Urdu poet whose genius it is impossible to capture in words. I have found such an astoundingly broad spectrum of my feelings and thoughts resonating in his poetry over time. Through his words Ghalib speaks to our hearts crossing the gulf of time. He is God's gift to the subcontinent. I may summon all the expressive power at my command and I won't be able to do a fraction of justice to his enormous talent, so I won't try. The only person equipped to adequately praise Ghalib's poetry is Ghalib himself, and he does so at several instances while not sounding the least bit arrogant or conceited. Thank you, friend. May God bless your soul.

I came across the following quote by Mahatma Gandhi:

I find this quote to be extremely important and with far-reaching consequences, and a specific example of a general principle about application of the beliefs one holds.

First, Gandhi is stressing the point that it is not enough to be non-violent on the outside; one must be non-violent from the inside. Gandhi described holding any kind of ill-will against the other person has a form of violence (hinsa). If one shuns violence externaly while wishing for the opponent's misfortune on the inside, then the person is acting only out of weakness, and being hypocritical. Moreover, such "non-violence" is unlikely to have the resolve and patience needed for it to be successful.

Second, this is an instance of a general principle about how to apply beliefs which operate at different levels of one's spiritual understanding, and are apparently contradictory to each other. For example the doctrine of karmayoga preaches that one should dispassionately fight for the cause of dharma (righteousness). On the other hand advaita vedanta preaches that everything happens according to god's will, and it is arrogant to think that one can make the world "better" than the way it currently is. The resolution is that the two are consequences of different stages of development. Until one actually reaches the  stage of oneness with the absolute and sees for himself how everthing is happening according to god's will, it is sheer hypocricy to wash one's hands off any responsibility towards working for the good of others.

Similar would be the case for people who selectively place their lives in God's hands, thus ending up being irresponsible fatalists.
EDITED to add Elodie's comment which explains it beautifully: "I also agree with your views on belief. We need to keep trying always. I always do that but if then things turn out differently I then often see something bigger guiding me. That does not mean I sit back or blame anyone except my own actions, its just that results are not always in my hands and generally whatever happens, it becomes the best. But my actions are my responsibility, always."

Swami Vivekananda illustrated this principle with the case of a Brahman who wanted to reap the fruits of all his good karma at the end of his life. He accepted everything, but when reminded that he had killed a cow once, he said that he had killed the cow with his right hand, and since Vishnu is the ruling diety of the hand, it is Vishnu who should be held responsible, not him :D

-------
P.S. - I came to know about Gandhi's early "racist" views, will write a post on that later