Spiritual enlightenment with Facebook

Facebook is based on this mission - gather people in close knit groups, and enlighten them spiritually!

How?

1. Time devours all.

You create a page, and add content for months and years. But by default Facebook only shows last few posts, maybe a day or two if you post a lot. You scroll back for older posts. Now imagine if there are 5-10 posts a day on a page (or your own profile), it is not easy to see what has been already posted, and same topics keep appearing, same questions being asked! Unlike a website, where you can quickly search and see content, index, list of posts etc.

So in a sense, posting on Facebook is like creating a Tibetan or Native American sand-painting or a Hindu kolam (rice-flour painting in front of the house that is created daily), throwing it in the flowing river of Time. The timeline is there, but traversing the timeline is like tracing the Sanskrit literature's history - arduous and time-consuming.

"Time eats all lives, Time kills populations, Time is awake when you sleep, it is difficult to escape Time."

Click to read the full post - Time is insurmountable

कालः पचति भूतानि, कालः संहरते प्रजाः |

कालः सुप्तेषु जागर्ति, कालो हि दुरतिक्रमः ||

kAlaH pachati bhUtAni, kAlaH saMharate prajAH |

kAlaH supteShu jAgarti, kAlo hi duratikramaH ||

kālaḥ pachati bhūtāni, kālaḥ saṃharate prajāḥ |

kālaḥ supteṣhu jāgarti, kālo hi duratikramaḥ ||

2. You should live in the present.

And so says a shloka - Past can't be changed, future is not here yet, the wise live in the present (that is they don't spoil their present in lamenting the past or fretting the future)

गते शोको न कर्तव्यो भविष्यं नैव चिन्तयेत् ।

वर्तमानेन कालेन वर्तयन्ति विचक्षणाः ॥

gate shoko na kartavyo bhaviShyaM naiva chintayet |

vartamAnena kAlena vartayanti vichakShaNAH ||(ITRANS)

gate shoko na kartavyo bhaviṣhyaṃ naiva chintayet ।
vartamānena kālena vartayanti vichakṣhaṇāḥ ॥ (IAST)

3. Do good and forget about it.

So, if you have built content over a few years, that is all gone in the darkness of history. No one can give a quick link to a Wall post that ended up in a wonderful discussion a year ago! Most of them won't even come up in a search. Some of the best discussions on Practical Sanskrit that happened last year are buried so deep, you couldn't find them if you wanted to.

4. It is all temporary.

In Page reach statistics, to tell you how many people the Page is actually reaching out to, or how many people are talking about it, it uses a short time period (first 30 day stats only), which means that if a post becomes popular after 30 days it won't matter!

5. You are not the body, but the spirit.

There are so many Facebook contacts that are virtually virtual, contacts through virtual world activity, many you have never seen in real life. But on Facebook where your word, thought is only that reaches out and not the physical interaction, it is truly the spirit that matters and not the body!

6. Why be attached to money? Jagat mithyA (The world is an illusion)

IshAvAsya upaniShad (ईशावास्य उपनिषद् ) opens with - मा गृध कस्य स्विद्धनं 'mA gRidha kasya svid_dhanam' - don't covet, for whose is the money? Implying that you didn't bring anything in this world, so it is not yours to begin with.

To all the friends addicted to Farmville and other games where you can buy a fertilizer or a hint for a dollar - 'the money is not yours to begin with, throw it in the deep well of Facebook!'

The world that you thought to be real as late as five years back, is not real. It is mithyA, illusion. Once you enter the vaikuNTha (frustration free) of Facebook, the veil of false reality removed, you see the truth in the FBville of 800 million souls, happily wondering. They say that in vaikuNTha, the abode of viShNu, there is no body needs like hunger, thirst, pain etc. So is true when surfing Facebook. The hungry of the world should be given an iPod with FB preloaded, and that will solve the hunger problem!

How has Facebook helped you in your spiritual enlightenment?

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