|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Wednesday, 30 June 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Features | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
Refinement, gracefulness and style Qualities that ennoble man by Chandra Edirisuriya Refinement, gracefulness and style are qualities that have ennobled the fruit gatherers of the earliest days of human existence as well as the modern day human beings. Even animals such as the lion, the elephant, the horse and even the cat and the dog have these noble qualities. Refinement (or raffinement in French) is defined as fineness of feeling or taste, polish or elegance in behaviour or manner. Refine is to make or become more subtle or delicate in thought, feelings etc. Gracefulness is defined as attractiveness, especially in elegance of proportion or manner or movement. Style is defined as a superior quality or manner. The great civilizations of the world like the Indus valley, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates, the Chinese, the Mayan and the Aztec in Central America and Mexico respectively, were created by men and women of refinement, gracefulness and style. The founders of great religions, philosophers, scientists, religious leaders, leaders of men, countries and empires and those who attained eminence in the fields of useful human activity have all been men and women replete with such traits. Among those with such towering personalities Gauthama the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammed, Confucius, Lao Tse, Zoroaster, Manu Kautiliya, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Dharmasoka, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Sanghamitta Therini, Justinian, Charlemagne, Leo Tolstoy, Voltaire, Rousseau, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen (the American Marx), Frederick Engels, Lenin, Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Ming, Lord Bertrand Russel, Earnest Hemingway, Albert Schwitzer, Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Jawarharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, shine. Our own great kings such as Dutugemunu, Vijayabahu I, Parakrama Bahu the Great, the great scholar Mahanama the author of Mahavamsa, Munidasa Cumaratunga, Dr. E. W. Adikaram, Ven. Professor Walpola Rahula, Prime Ministers D. S. Senanayake, Sir John Kotelawala, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, educationists and statesmen like Sir Baron (D.B.) Jayatilake, P. de S. Kularatne, G. W. Rajapakse have been men and women of refinement, gracefulness and style. Good manners and etiquette are part and parcel of refinement, gracefulness and style. So are deportment movement and carriage. Deportment is defined as bearing, demeanour or manners especially of the cultured kind. Carriage is the manner of carrying oneself, one's bearing or deportment. Just as animals keep their poise and are graceful in their movements human beings, from time immemorial have had such qualities and have led a life of refinement, gracefulness and style with effortless ease. Graceful bodily movements of man or woman, boy or girl are reflections of their inner balance. If they are mentally disturbed their speech, action, movement etc. will become weird. In extreme cases of such mental disequilibrium, the person can become abusive and violent leading even to criminality. The person or persons concerned can become a sore to society. If intoxicants are added to this self willed concoction of crude demeanour, the person can become virtually like the dog turned inside out - an obnoxious pest to all around and will be treated like the plague. This most unfortunate metamorphosis of an individual into a social undesirable has its equal mutatis mutandis in the despoilage of the natural environment by the introduction of monstrosities like chemical fertilizers, pesticides, weedicides, insecticides non bio-degradable polythene and plastic, aluminium foil etc into the virgin soil, the air and the water. This is a reflection of man's undue greed for a life of luxury. But it is really as foolish as converting your compound into a piggery to set more income to live a life of ease and comfort not realising that such a life can only be led by keeping both nostrils lightly closed to say the least. In such a situation, refinement, grace, style and what one may call culture will long have flown out of the windows. The mess is all man-made. It's a case of man's ingenuity and resourcefulness being abused and derailed. The animals in our wild life sanctuaries still retain their gracefulness. They do not sully their environment. They do not overeat or take intoxicants except when offered to an elephant in the form of 'goda' by a distiller of the devil's brew. It is said that an elephant when suffering from indigestion called 'gulma gaya' gets on top of a rock where there is no tempting food in the form of vegetation within reach and waits until the ailment passes. A medical doctor has to advise us humans, in such an illness, not to take solids. Perhaps man imitated animals when he started to sing and dance. The original song of man was the lullaby sung to put babies to sleep. The courtship of both humans and animals in their natural state was almost similar. Man's gracefulness was lost and man became less refined and stylish when hypocrisy entered his mind just as animals lost those qualities when they began to be bred in captivity. To illustrate this I cite the story related by a well known consultant hypnotist in this country on television recently. A patient suffering from stammering was hypnotised and taken back to a previous life in which he was working elephant leading an unhappy life because its owner over worked it and did not even feed it adequately. As the patient was not cured of the stammer completely he was taken back to the life previous to it where he was a petty ruler in India who overworked, overtaxed and underfed his subjects and got killed by them in the most miserable manner in front of his palace. The man and the elephant suffered and led unrefined, ungraceful lives lacking style owing to their past actions (kamma). However much hypocrites pretend to be honest and endeavour to lead a life of refinement, gracefulness and style the slip shows. Honest people beautiful at heart, shine with grace, refinement and style or in other words are cultured like the 'Devas' or 'Angels' in Heaven. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
