{"id":352,"date":"2011-03-07T12:44:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T17:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/?p=352"},"modified":"2011-03-07T12:44:06","modified_gmt":"2011-03-07T17:44:06","slug":"a-good-name-is-the-only-true-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/a-good-name-is-the-only-true-wealth\/","title":{"rendered":"A good name is the only true wealth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cA good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one\u2019s birth. \u201c<br \/>\n<em>&#8211; Ecclesiastes<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Kabir &#8211; The couplet<\/strong><br \/>\n?? ??? ? ???? ???, ??? ???? ? ??? |<br \/>\n??? ????? ?? ???, ?? ?? ?????? ??? ||<\/p>\n<p><strong>transliterated:<\/strong><br \/>\nDhan rahe na yauvan rahe, rahe gaanv na dham |<br \/>\nKahe Kabira jas rahe, kar de kisika kaam ||<\/p>\n<p><strong>Translation:<\/strong><br \/>\nWealth does not endure, nor youth; village and holy space will also succumb to time |<br \/>\nSay Kabir, a good name will live eternal \u2013 go out and help someone in need||<\/p>\n<p><strong>My thoughts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Solomon (in the book of Ecclesiastes) presents an interesting concept \u2013 that the day of death is to be celebrated rather than the day of birth. In expanding that thought, there is a different way of seeing the purpose of life.<\/p>\n<p>When we come into this world, we have a clean slate \u2013 no baggage, unknown purpose and a clear lack of dependencies. By the time we are done with our life, we have all three, and perhaps a lot more.<\/p>\n<p>In the process of living our life, we accumulate joy, pain, satisfaction, frustration, and a host of other conflicting emotional baggage. Death is the moment when we are relieved of this and we return to a state of peace and oneness with the universe.<\/p>\n<p>This is also true for all that is a creation or construct of this material world. Commerce and wealth are part of only the material world \u2013 so also the house, the village, and our place of reaching out to a higher power (pilgrimage place, temple, church). The soul, God, the Maker, the higher power, are all omnipresent and omniscient. We, in human form, need to define material space \u2013 not the soul.<\/p>\n<p>The true wealth of a good name, too, is eternal \u2013 who forgets the name of David, Ashoka, Mahatma Gandhi or Helen Keller? When we serve without thought for a result other than making the served satisfied, we receive a great wealth in return. When we do with result(s) anticipated, we may get some of the result \u2013 but none of the name.<\/p>\n<p>We get exactly what we give \u2013 no more and no less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cA good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one\u2019s birth. \u201c &#8211; Ecclesiastes Kabir &#8211; The couplet ?? ??? ? ???? ???, ??? ???? ? ??? | ??? ????? ?? ???, ?? ?? ?????? ??? || transliterated: Dhan rahe na yauvan rahe, rahe gaanv na dham&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-kabir","category-philosophy","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":355,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}