It's been nearly three weeks since my last post. My husband and I were in Melbourne for two of them, and now, once more, I'm back behind the computer wondering what to write.
The past seven years we've taken this yearly trip to Melbourne to participate in the Melbourne Temple's Annual Congregational Retreat, followed by two weeks of classes, home programs etc.
However usually there's time free during the day, so this time I visited some Melbourne Museums for ideas how to present our own small Sacred India Display here in Perth.
Generally the subject matter in museums is history.Thus I saw many displays of the early days in Melbourne.
First the farming settlers came in 1835.
The following year 177 people were living here and next year the "grid" for the city was designed and the name Melbourne was given.
Twenty years later 27,000 more people had arrived - and countless sheep as well.
And so it goes...
Then World War1 took place and so many men went to fight [ by now nearly half a million people lived here] and after that came World War 2.
I went through quite a few many museum presentations until I came to the displays of the last twenty years. I found that quite dull. Everything looked far too familiar, recent and common place. Museum fatigue began to set in.
------
Driving home I watched people going here and there: shopping, taking lunch, active and enterprising. I wondered why it all seemed quite empty?
Yes, they are working so hard, and shaping their futures. Yes, the city is expanding and meeting the needs of a new generation.Yes, they have entertainment, houses and appliances unimaginable to the simple farmers, who lived here 170 years ago.
But what have they learnt from the past?
Have they learnt from the museum-history a most important lesson - namely - that nobody has stayed here in Melbourne, they ALL had to leave and go. And where did they go?
Sadhus, Sages and spiritualists of all faiths emphasize that life in this body is not eternal, but we ARE eternal. If we are eternal souls, where did we come from before we came here,and also where will we go?
And what is real value of life?
I think hardly anyone who visits the Melbourne Museum's Circuit will ask themselves any significant questions.However here are some cutting words from a sadhu - Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur.
"The false value that has been set upon the history of the race, by writers who happen to be utterly devoid of all spiritual taste, has degraded the outlook of man and made him long for those things that are neither good, nor beautiful, nor lasting.
Empiric study is valuable as a codified record of our disappointing worldly experience. It cannot go beyond that point and it cannot even perform this modest task correctly unless it is aware of its own limitations.
The so-called achievements of a race, are not the achievements of the soul. Factually they are the results of the pitiless operations of the deluding energy of the Lord which occupy the attention of man with concerns in this world and thereby force him to postpone and undervalue any serious consideration of the needful concerns of the soul.
This aspect of the great events of the world should be represented when presenting secular history in it's true perspective."
______
Whew. That was heavy. Sadhus are wiser than we. They see clearly what we might try to avoid looking at. Only they can enlighten us about the real value of history.
