By James Kottoor
Speak Lord Your Servant Hearth!
God speaks through “the signs of the times” is Vatican 2nd’s version, of Indian wisdom Isavasamiham Sarvam. In our globalised world internet has become the hotline (substituting religion) to speak and listen to God, not in heaven, but in the other (neighbours around the world) in the biblical sense.
James kottoor
Isavasamiham Sarvam (God is omnipresent), that is, He is present in you, in me and everyone. If so the next step is to say: Aham Bhramasmi (I am Bhraman) or at least, I am part of that Bhraman, even if not the whole of it, definitely not outside of it. Was Jesus meaning the same when he said: ‘I and the Father are one? To see me is to see the Father’ when Philip asked Jesus: ‘Show us the Father, that is enough?’
Was John telling us anything different when he said: ‘One who doesn’t love his neighbour whom he sees, cannot love God whom he doesn’t see’? Because God created man in his own image and likeness. What else did Paul mean when he said: You are the temple of the Holy Spirit? Was it not precisely for this reason Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well: ‘Time has come to worship God, not in that temple or this, but in spirit and truth in one’s own heart’? To prove he meant what he said, Jesus even cried over the manmade temple of Jerusalem going to be erased to the ground without leaving one stone upon another.
God Speaks Constantly
What are we driving at with these biblical quotes? It is to arrive at the example of young Samuel: “Speak Lord for your servant hearth.” It speaks volumes of his humble, docile, prayerful attitude with which he listened to God speaking to him in sleep or dream. It means God speaks to us constantly when asleep and awake, especially through people, the only visible image of God we have, whom we encounter daily and through other “signs of the times” such as happenings in and around us, not necessarily through church structures or religious leaders.
What relevance has it for Almayasabdam? This website happens to be one of the typical “signs of the times”. Our times is called the knowledge era, age of globalisation, the internet era which puts us in instant contact with the rest of the world. When we write here we are speaking to the whole world and when we read here we are listening to the whole world of knowledgeable people. That enjoins on us twofold duties: 1. to be responsible and respectful to the audience we are addressing, 2. to be docile and receptive like a Samuel when we read and react.
Be Respectful & Docile
First needs little explanation because here we are speaking to a literate and discerning audience by the very fact they are able to use this most modern internet facility. The second needs more careful thought because everyone who writes here is de facto our master and teacher. For instance you who reads these lines is my master because you know much more than I do on various topics, perhaps even on the topic I am writing.
That is also the wonder of creation, that no two people are alike in all things in this world and therefore each has something to teach, which makes him a teacher in his own right. Hence the saying: “You should learn also from the grave-digger.” That stresses the need to cultivate a student-teacher attitude when we read these pages, as expressed by Samuel: “Speak Lord for your servant hearth.”
It is through this teaching-learning process that we all grow into our fullness? For example what is the biggest room in this world? Its name is the ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT which none of us shall ever fill. It is also tells us of the void we have to fill to grow up fully.
Disagree agreeably
Only when both the readers and writers are fired by this zeal and right motive of learning and sharing, can this website produce maximum benefit for maximum number of people. In this dialogue across the globe there is also a lot of room for disagreement and criticism, since it is human to err, whether one is master or student. Only, one has to learn how to disagree in an agreeable way. This we do when we show utmost respect to the “Ahambhramasmi” in the other (human) “the crown and glory of God’s creation” as Vivekananda defines, because man is no enemy to man though his ideas often are.
So the principles to remember could be: “Each one teach one” and “Learn from each other.” This learning could be from what is being written and also from websites of inspiring thoughts and ideas one may have already created for the benefit of posterity. Some have already thrown open their blogs for public use. Emulating them, I too share with you what little I have gathered. You are therefore most welcome to visit various scribbling in my website: https//sites.google.com/site/jameskottoorspeaking/, Twitter.com.jameskottoor,and Facebook.
Read and react, we must, to these ‘signs of the times’ constructively and critically without mincing words but politely, if we are to grow into our fullness in these fast changing times. That may be the best way also to make Almayasabdam play a vibrant role in global sharing for everyone’s benefit and a real CELEBRATION!
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