The Conspiring Stars

Monday February 14 2005 07:42 IST

By Karmayogi

Man successfully deceives others. He is a cheat. People are cautious about him. What about one who deceives his own self? People believe him and at times of crisis, his true colours come out. Actions, especially the results of action are the touchstone. He who deceives himself destroys himself fully. Sitting for long hours at the reading table or the writing desk does not mean he is reading or working. If a student is under the illusion of consummate self-deception that he is sincerely reading by sitting at his desk for long hours, the exams and his scores will reveal the truth. At these moments such people say, “I am star-crossed.” He is NOT star-crossed. He is not responsible even to himself. This is a pitiable case. There are others in an office who are universally known to be polite, diligent, dutiful, and hard working. They have a finer discrimination. They know their own interest different from the duty to the office.

To their own interest, they pay full attention. To the duty to the office, they put up a behaviour of responsibility and consciously and cautiously SHIRK the responsibility. Rarely they are caught by any except the perceptive. Suppose a load of stationery arrives and it is this man's responsibility to receive it, he would be seen attending to it with great alertness, receiving the bundles and boxes and having them stored and locked. To all appearances he is a responsible member. No one would have noticed, except the delivery boy, that he did not check or tally the delivery chalan with the delivered goods. It is a source for theft or missing items. Such people are insincere, but do not know it themselves. I would call them sincerely insincere.

You can't wake a person up who pretends to be sleeping. At the end of the year, inventory will reveal his irresponsibility. Everyone will absolve him of the responsibility because of his good behaviour. He himself grows sincere at those moments: “Something in my horoscope, something in my upbringing, in my previous birth is conspiring.” It may or may not be true. His own conscious, cautious FALSEHOOD that takes care of his own personal affairs and neglects the duty to the office is the culprit. There is no salvation for him unless he wakes up. Such people meet with a catastrophe when their degree certificate gets lost in a missing train parcel. When they go to the university for a copy, they will hear that section had a fire accident. Life is cruel to them in the extreme. An eldest son who deserted his dependent family thus and retired as a high official discovered that his son after graduation refused to take a job and could not be married till he was 50. The father had consciously deserted his desperate family. His son gleefully enjoyed life, spent his father's money and chased women.