Thursday, March 5, 2009

Are you ‘linked inside’ or just ‘LinkedIn’ ?

‘LinkedIn’ has now 50 million user . People discuss ,play with words and talk about jobs and meet new people.

I had found, in some of my friends, have only 2 connection, and other have 2000 . I, often receive request of connection. Sometimes, I feel compelled to accept it, and sometimes I don’t.

Years ago , I had an passion to be clinged with , some or other spiritual community . They made a lot of sense to me. They talk differently , smile differently, and sometimes they also reinforce some of there values, in there actions, which they talk.

But, then when I went deep within them, I found that these entire behavior is only limited to the spheres of community. Sometimes not that also. So, these all thoughts, are good way to network in the community, and stay connected. This people live on different values, when it come to there practical life. They are those same old guys , only these time they come with better make ups, and might be a better quality mask, as good as ‘face off’ and armed with there expertise, on quoting and referencing words from scriptures, or certain masters here and there . It’s just how you put the message, and start networkworking.

LinkedIn has a popular catchy message ‘Are you LinkedIn’ ? … and there are spiritual groups in real life, ‘which says are you linked inside’ ? But in reality, they both stand in same boat. They equally live disconnected, from each other , with having a volumes of connection . It is always possible, to have volumes of connection , but stay completely disconnected, being busy with the ritual of building connection .

We all have dream of a true spiritual community of real friends, who listened to each other's personal tragedies, without merely trying to fix the problems, who encouraged and nurtured each other's strengths, and who accepted people, for who they really are, instead of the image they try to portray.

In today's frenetic society, people rarely develop this kind of intimate friendships. Instead, they spend their lives essentially disconnected, from others, rushing through life content, with brief visits and casual conversations.

But what if one were to develop a community, a spiritual community, of people who walked with, and supported each other through life's journey?.

What if .. there is no constant ‘spiritual peer pressure’ of perfection, from the people who thinks themselves more perfect towards the people whom they conceive as less perfect, due to there mastery of certain words of the master . As because you know some words in a better way and can present in fine verses, do you get the Unlimited free pass, to humiliate anybody, and make fun of everybody ?

What makes a spiritual community really spiritual , and different from an academic community, where ideological wars are more frequent and compassion and sharing is ‘Hebrew’ ?

Hasn’t God made any safest place in the earth, where we are allowed to become imperfect. Where he should take care of us , and heal us from imperfection to perfection?

If you say to God , your future plans, he makes big laugh of you always.

Don’t you think , its fair for him , to just give a place , for this funny ,imperfect people, that they atleast could have not ‘big roads’ but some ‘small lanes’ to towards salvation also ?. ‘Big roads’ could be for the intelligent and the learned once.

What makes a community spiritual and what makes it unspiritual…..

Now ,I have stopped my search for spiritual communities . Because I have started understanding that there is nothing call spiritual community . The most spiritual community can have all those characteristics of ideological wars , faceoffs , masking , trying to become self appointed prophesier, and so much more describing those could make so much loss of bandwith and whitespace .

On Contrary, you can find a true spiritual moment from staying those people who doesn’t have tagline of spirituality behind them , who are not into a following of a great master, and don’t read his master to quote master here and there and often make a fun of people who can’t do it .

They are just simple prayful people, who stands up to support others. They don’t have nice cars ,glowing faces , and great words . However , there eyes tells me , that they accept me as I am.


I stopped my search not because I didn’t find , or neither because I find somebody. But because I found this is a way , God is teasing me . “ “Here are you are .. around the world !!! in you search of ideal spiritual community , which stays just next door to you “

“You see .. I am such stupid , ignorant person” . Everytime God , makes it a point to prove it .

Now ,I feel blessed to be stupid and ignorant . Atleast I can see, how God works to prove that it is true.

That’s how the journey from ‘Linkedin’ and ‘linked inside’ is both simple and complex. It brings you to the source .

Monastic , Non monastic , Spiritual, Social ,New age, Industrial .. you can be either linkedin or linked inside . That’s what matters . The tagline doesn’t matters.