Extending the Gita to the modern Age !
The Karma of Forwarding Emails
Bhagvad Gita - Adhyay 19
Arjun: Hey Vasudev, how can I do the most heinous and unpardonable act of forwarding email that I receive, to my friends, relatives and revered elders?
Krishna: Paarth, at this moment, none of them is your friend or foe, relative or in-law, young or old and good or evil. You have no escape from following your Net-Dharma. Make haste to log on and send off the email to one and all. That is the only Karma expected of you and Dharma you must follow.
Arjun: Hey Murari! Do not implore me to do something that pricks my conscience and stirs my soul.
Krishna: O Kunti-Putra, you are caught in the vicious circle of Maya. In this material world, you are committed to no one except to yourself, your Dharma and your mouse. emails have existed for the last 25 years and will remain long after you are gone. Rise above the Maya and perform your bounden duty.
Arjun: Lord Krishna, pray and enlighten me on how email is related to Maya.
Krishna: Vatsa, Email is the 6th element in the universe - Aap, Vaayu, Jal, Agni, Aakaash and Email. It is at the same time animate and inanimate, living and dead beat. It overloads the system and fills up the hard disk. But it serves one great purpose. It leads people to believe that they are filling their time in an intellectual pursuit by reading and re-forwarding mail. It gives them a sense of achievement without investing their intellect and efforts. Like the Atma that leaves one's physical body and moves on to another, the email moves from system to system and never gets deleted or dies.
Arjun: Great Giridhaari, kindly tell me what the true attributes of email are.
Krishna: Neither fire can burn it, nor air can evaporate it. Neither can it be conquered nor can it be defeated. Email is omnipresent and immortal like your noble and eternal soul. Unlike an arrow shot from your bow, many a time the email forwarded by you, will even return to you safely after some months or even years, allowing you to re-re-forward it to the same people.
Arjun: Great Saarathi, my salutations to you. You have opened my eyes to the cult of email. I was lost in the Maya and have been reading all the email that I keep receiving and doing no other Karma. Now on, I will just press the "Forward" button without reading any of it and send it to all and sundry, friends and foes, relatives and in-laws, young and old. That will surely bring them to their knees in this epochal battle of Good against Evil, in the Kurukshetra.
Krishna: Arjuna, victory or defeat is not in your hands. Do not ponder over the fruits of your labour. Just keep forwarding email and make one and all go bananas reading it and you will have done your supreme duty. Tathastu.
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