Saturday, January 26, 2013

The character Judgement of Lance Armstrong

Since I am a fan and close follower of Lance Armstrong, in a recent discussion with friends, I encountered the following "questions/allegations" (seeking my views on the topic)
- Lance Armstrong is a liar
- He cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs
- Its against the true essence of sport, which actually builds character
- Due to his actions, a lot of innocent people didn't make their grade
- So if the majority of the cyclists take EPOs, he is a great cyclist since he beat them all, but that doesn't absolve him of lying, cheating, etc
...and so on

My first reaction was to defend my hero, someone whom I have always looked upto, read both his books, who inspired me to get going on a bike. But I soon realized the futility of the whole argument.

Person A was commenting on the life of Person B and Person C was stepping in to defend Person B. Neither A, B nor C are connected in any way.

I would say that all of us are on are individual journeys through life with the sole objective of realizing and living our potential and growing within to become better and helpful human beings. This journey normally lasts multiple life times until such time as "we get it"
Our gurus have tought us that this "getting it" is all about unlearning all that we have picked up along the way.

We don't really build character, we uncover it by our Sadhana and our responses to life experiences.

I believe that no one human can comment on the journey of another. It would be a mere second hand judgement.

I also believe that while we unlearn our conditioning, we may not be perfect in the moralistic (wordly/society) sense of the word. We all would probably exhibit some character flaw or other. Most of us have some or the other skeletons in the cupboard. However standing in judgement of these flaws as we see in others, is a useless exercise and at best has gossip value and is also an indication of having those flows ourselves. Instead it would be good to reflect on all these experiences (even of observing others and reading about others) and seeing how we can improve our journey towards uncovering our beautiful character.

The observation is external but the application is internal
Moralhood is a fine state to visit once in a while, but we shouldnt get it home - Richard Bach

In essense, we need to observe and learn from the journey of others but work and focus on our own journey.

Am I a MORE peaceful, MORE loving, MORE joyful person today.

Side Note: As for Lance Armstrong, just like I acknowledged his massive strength in fighting cancer, enduring gruelling training rides (yes despite EPO, one needs to bust ones ass on the saddle to ride), dealing with turbulent personal issues, starting a cancer foundation,etc,  I also acknowledge his weakness of falling prey to desires, lies, cheating, etc.

I choose to focus on the former and simply be aware of the latter.

1 comment:

Usha Iyer said...

gurdieff n osho are not averse to criticism .. which is an armour to keep away the unreal fans..