OM SRI SAI RAM
Alpesh ji, Sai Ram!
You are very right. It is absolutely Baba’s grace that we all are here and able to share so much of informationenhancing our knowledge rather awareness.
You are also right that you are much younger to me in age. Not only you, most of the members in this forum are much younger to me in age. ONLY IN AGE. However, the usage of “ji” as a suffix has to be used even when we address the children (except daughter / son by their parents) as a matter of respect to the Baba ( the paramatma ) in all. In other words, while addressing any one we use the name as the first part indicating the name given to that ‘body’ and the ‘ji’ as the second part which addresses the God in that body. In other words, respecting others amounts to respecting God himself and further it amounts to respecting our own self. Hence, as per our culture and heritage, we address even a small child with this suffix of ‘ji’. But now, due to the cultural changes, change of times, mixture of various cultures etc, have gradually made this usage not a compulsion.
Even in SSC, you would have heard about the story of Balvant Naachne who is supposed to be the disciple of 12 year old Bhaagwat. Similarly Padadoy Pode is a guru even before he was eight years of age. They have attained such stages due to the attainment of Self Realisation and not on the basis of age. Coming to the present world, I stayed in different parts of the states - UP, AP, WB, TN, Karnataka where this usage is common even while addressing the children. People are used to calling everyone “garu” equal to “ji” in AP while, “ngo” in TN and everybody is referred to as “aap” “ji” in UP and WB. But, in Kerala alone, they don’t have this usage; I don’t know the reason.
I hope Shambhavi ji is too clear.
Topic: About Meher Baba (Read 3637 times)