Ramji himself lists to Shabari ten things which men seek and depend upon to gain anything in the material world: “Jaati, paati, kul, dharam, badaai, dhan, bal, parijan, gun, chaturai.” The first being caste and how vain are people born in the so called “upper caste”. The next word means social status, which again boosts the ego no end. “Kul” refers to the family into which one happens to be born. Here too the individual gains a huge importance due to the name, the status, the wealth and culture of that family. The next is “dharam.” Taken in its narrow sense it translates as religion, this creates feelings of superiority and inferiority, but the essential nature of a thing without which it cannot qualify as that thing is called it’s dharam. e.g. sweetness in sugar. “Badaai” is the very highly acclaimed famous social standing of a person. Then he states wealth, “dhan”. Wealth is a great power, people achieve tremendous material success with it. Then comes “bal” power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is thrown in our face daily from shrill TV channels.
Then is listed “parijan”, which is your entire circle of friends, relatives, and yes, “contacts.” We love to drop names, don’t we? “Guna” is skills and various capabilities on which we are valued. The last listed is “chaturai”, which is cleverness, smartness. All these ten make us proud to think that anything can be achieved with a fraction of these.
Ramji makes it very clear to Shabari that he does not value anyone based on these ten things. He only values one relationship, and that is love and devotion, even if it is an animal. Ramji addresses Shabari thrice as “Bhamini” during this meeting. This is a powerful endearment used by Ramji to tell her how much he values her.
Prarthna Saran, President Chinmaya Mission Delhi.