Here is a map of the British Isles. You can see England, Wales and Scotland – known collectively as Great Britain – on the right hand side, and Ireland on the left hand side. Ireland is the small island off the coast of Great Britain.
This is the map of the British Isles I grew up with. And this is the view that children growing up in Ireland would have seen if they’d watched the BBC television weather forecast any evening during the 1950s and 60s. The British weather presenter would stand up against a map like this one, all covered in lines and symbols to indicate the ‘ridges of high pressure’ and the ‘isobars’ and tell us what the weather was going to be the next day.
Ireland was much bigger physically of course, but because most of it was Eire, the independent Republic, the British didn’t show it on the television weather map. They simply showed blue water everywhere south of Northern Ireland. It was as if Eire didn’t exist. The political identity was a more important reality and the physical existence simply disappeared.
Hence a generation of Irish children became confused, thinking that their nation was a small piece of land. Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Limerick and Galway were all nowhere to be seen – all under the deep blue sea.
The BBC corrected their presentation later on, but still managed to diminish the importance of Eire through a carefully contrived map and shoulder position (see picture)
Vaishnava teachings – Krishna consciousness – calls upon us to correct our vision of reality by understanding what we are deliberately obscuring. The fact is that we often only see what we ourselves choose to see; or what more powerful forces want us to see.
Krishna is real. In fact He is the most real, being the very foundation of reality itself. Yet maya, the illusory power under whose influence we experience and move, causes us to be conscious of only a small portion of reality.
But just as Irish children came to understand, through correct information, that their nation was much bigger than they’d been allowed to believe, so through a process of correct information and re-training our vision, we can gradually come to experience reality as it is.
1 Comment
July 18, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Hare Krishna Kripamoya prabhu!
This is Tim from Ireland. I was searching for images of Krishna Kirtan for the website I am building called http://www.yoga-dublin.com and I somehow came to this site. Very interesting and informative. I’ve noted to add as a link on my new site.
Regarding the above article, the British government was initially a bit peeved when Eire got independence, and imposed heavy taxes on Irish goods imported into GB. Not to mention they were a little rude and violent for centuries before that. But gradually, year by year, relationships are improving more and more and more!