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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Wish the world truth & honour as you sign your emails and letters

Recently I reconnected with a very good friend. We'd been out of touch for a few years, and I tell you: it was really good to hear from him again. I think we've kind of taken off just where we left off. Anyway, I was looking at some printouts of old emails from him (he used to send his poetry out to people on his list; ah, the good old days when you had to actually email people to share your writing, thoughts, ideas, whatever), and I noticed a really nice sentence he used on one as a way of signing off. He wrote:
Vishwa dharma ki jai

This is Sanskrit and means (according to my friend), 'victory to universal truth and honour'. When I read this expression, I was moved. Now, I don't have a problem with 'yours sincerely' or 'kind regards' and so on, as ways of signing off in an email or (just imagine) in a letter. Indeed, I think those salutations (is that the right word?) can be meaningful and can carry heartfelt and sincere wishes from one person to another.
However, as with all things we do 'automatically' and as a matter of course, these expressions seem to have lost much, if not all their true meanings. In fact, how often do we get emails with no such signing off, and with merely the sender's name at the bottom? Actually, now I think about it, I remember some emails that don't even carry the sender's name as a way of signing off. Now, that is rude on the surface, but in reality it's also meaningless: people and the way they communicate are changing; I guess some of these so-called 'niceties' are just naturally going to be lost.
So, when I read my friend's Sanskrit salutation, I thought, hey, I'm going to make sure that I for one do not forget these traditional expressions of good wishes and salutation. And what better salutation for a truth seeker (that's me) than my friend's?
It might be that a wish for the victory of universal truth and honour sounds a bit old fashioned, a bit formal even. Not at all: how up to date, how necessary in our materialistic, fast-paced and sometimes lonely and corrupt world, is it to seek truth and to act with honour. Honour isn't the fuddy-duddy, formal term you might think. Look it up: it's about honesty, truth, right behaviour integrity, all that good and right stuff.
So, I'm going to try to use this great salutation whenever I can. And my message to you, dear reader? Vishwa dharma ki jai

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