It suddenly appeared across the hill, across the river and the rocks. Before it appeared in its seven visible vibgyor colours, there was a wedding of giddad-giddadi (he and she jackal); as was the folklore to describe rain and sun appearing together.
It appeared so near and yet so far. As a young boy I ran after it, to catch it in my little soiled hands, to bathe in its vivid hues, even to climb up and look down on the world through its prism. At that time it appeared far; it was near when I didn’t want to own it, when I wasn’t very conscious of its existence; it was far when it crept over my consciousness, when I wanted to hold it and possess it.
I have had the same experience with Time.
Before I lost myself in the rapid whirlpool of later-life Time, it flowed like a gentle stream. Indeed, at times it stood still and placid like a pond, like a lake. I didn’t know how much of it I had but it appeared vast, endless, infinite.
I played lukan-chhipi (hide n seek) with my friends and graduated to marbles, gilli-danda, football and cricket. I was small but Time was big. It was everywhere and totally free. I bought kaafal (a type of berry sold near my school, Vijay High School, Mandi), ice on stick, and an anna a booklet of film-songs lyrics. But, I never had to buy Time.
Perhaps because it was freely available, I didn’t place too much of value on it. As a young boy, I read Herman Wouk’s Caine Mutiny and as was normal for me during those days, finished it in a night’s time. How much I still remember; I am surprised. “Wasted hours” it said somewhere in the book, “Are just as painful in the beginning as in the end; only, in the end, it becomes more apparent”.
And now, looking back in time, that halcyon period of my life, when I had all the Time in the world, passed so quickly. I never tried to catch it but it appeared and disappeared like a rainbow; it was here a moment ago: red, orange, yellow and so on and now it is gone; not even the fading colours beyond violet and below red are there now.
Last to last night I saw the Hindi movie Maya that I wanted to see with its beautiful Salil da numbers based on Western classical music beats: Tasveer teri dil mein, jis din se banaayi hai and Jaa re jaa re udd jaa re panchhi. It turned out to be a trash movie and I rued the two and a half hours’ time that I wasted watching it. Two and half hours; in my boyhood days, I used to spend many times that time just day dreaming, writing worthless poetry or catching butterflies.
It is the same sand, passing through the same small opening in the hour-glass; why does it appear to be draining out much faster now? There appears to be lots to do and very little Time to do it. How do I slow it down? Should I catch it now before it gets still faster and makes me akin to a twig being pushed through the flow against my wish? Did I ever have the power to slow it, to stop it; if not to reverse it? Could I have ever caught the rainbow?
I don’t even think about how it would have been if I had thought, planned and done things differently. I am not even filled with ‘If Only’ regrets. But, it still gnaws me to think about whether I ever had the power to do things independently in my own way or whether I have been in a puppet in the hands of Time, trying to catch rainbows and doing things what have been writ for me including writing this article?
ज़िन्दगी में
ज़िन्दगी की तलाश में
ज़िन्दगी को पाने के लिए
कहाँ कहाँ नहीं गया?
क्या क्या ना किया?
पल पल, छिन छिन,
ज़िन्दगी मोम की तरह
पिघलती रही
ना जाने क्या थी?
ना जाने क्या है?
चंद लम्हे और मिल जाते
लौ कुछ और देर जलती
फिर क्या होता?
वक़्त का सितम
ठहर जाता क्या?
यादों के मरहले
खड़े होके क्या ना बिखरते?
कौस-ओ-क़ज़ाह
हाथ में आ जाता क्या?
ख्वाब की
ख़याल की
सराब की
असलियत समझ आ जाती क्या?
किस को मिली है आज़ादी
वक़्त की ज़ंजीरों से?
कौन समझा है?
Zindagi mein
Zindagi ki talaash mein
Zindagi ko paane ke liye
Kahaan kahaan nahin gaya?
Kyaa kyaa na kiyaa?
Pal pal, chhin chhin,
Zindagi mome ki tarah
Pighalti rahi.
Naa jaane kyaa thi?
Naa jaane kyaa hai?
Chand lamhe aur mil jaate
Lau kuchh aur der jalati
Phir kyaa hota?
Waqt ka sitam
Thehar jaata kyaa?
Yaadon ke marhale
Khade hoke kyaa na bikharte?
Qous-o-qazah
Haath mein aa jaata kyaa?
Khwaab ki
Khayaal ki
Saraab ki
Asleeyat samajh aa jaati kyaa?
Kis ko mili hai azaadi
Waqt ki zanjeeron se?
Kaun samajha hai?
After US President Barrack Obama’s last visit to India in Jan 2015, when he was the chief guest at our Republic day parade, I wrote an article titled ‘Is Communal Disharmony A Challenge To India’s March To Greatness?’ Talking to Delhi University students, he brought out that “No society is immune from the darkest impulses of men,” said Obama. “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.” I had traced the history of exploitation of religion and religious disharmony in India and had concluded that five diverse reasons existed for latent religious disharmony in India manifesting into large-scale unrest and violence that would undermine India taking its rightful place as an emerging economic and political power.
It has been eight months since I wrote the article. Lets take stock of how far have we reached in the politicisation of religion and secularism. Lets start in the news item of 22 Sep 15, in Hindustan Times:
‘The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) believes the concept of being secular was “irrelevant” in the Indian context and the “artificial injection of secularism” was not needed in a social order as hospitable and assimilative as Hindu society.
Sangh publicity chief Manmohan Vaidya said at an event in Chennai that Bharatiya or Indian tradition has from time immemorial regarded all faiths and sects as one.
“Secularism evolved along the themes of separation of the church and state in Europe and since India doesn’t have a history of theocratic states, the concept of secularism is irrelevant in the Indian context,” he said addressing more than 80 columnists from the southern states at an RSS-organised seminar last weekend.
Vaidya’s remarks closely follow RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s suggestion to set up a committee to review reservation system. This remark has already evoked sharp political reactions.
“Perversion of the concept of secularism in India has resulted in the terming of nationalists as communal and people with communal thinking being hailed as secular,” Vaidya said in the presence of RSS general secretary Suresh Bhaiyaji Joshi, the second-most powerful man in the outfit which is the BJP’s ideological mentor.’
One would like to believe these proclamations at face value; more so if one belongs to what once was the most benign, inclusive and reasonable religion in the world: Hinduism. However, in the past few decades of Congress rule, and in the more recent BJP rule, the divisive forces are being constantly fanned over what should be non-issues. The result is that over the electronic media, the minorities have openly started saying that they feel uncomfortable and insecure.
Take a look at the following illustrative diagram:
Despite the obvious spelling mistakes in the diagram, I found it illustrative of how the state must keep clear of religion and individual choices. Yes, as Manmohan Vaidya said, we don’t have a history of theocratic states. But, the state’s interference in matters of religion and individual choices has been on the increase. All political parties in India exploit religions as possible vote-banks. That’s precisely the reason why pooja-pandals have smaller pictures of the gods for whose collective worship the pandals have been made but much larger pictures of the political leaders sponsoring the pandals. One would want to hear from Manmohan Vaidya why wouldn’t the political parties in India leave religion to the people? Why would a BJP MLA make open and publicized remarks against the High Court’s curbs on noise during religious festivals by saying that the courts should respect people’s freedom of religious practices? Why does a political leader feel compelled to be a spokesperson for a particular religion if, as Vaidya said, we do not have, like the Europeans, the merging of the church and the state? Talking about the church, a government functionary in south India preaching the teachings of Christ in his official duties is as bad as the state getting involved in what is euphemistically called respecting the religious sentiments of the people (Please also read ‘State Sponsored Noise’ and ‘Who Are The People Whose Sentiments Need To Be Respected?‘)
I have read any number of articles on the net and otherwise extolling the virtues of idol-worship in India. The virtues range from child like innocence and purity of approach when a person stands reverently in front of an idol in total submission to how the idols help us to concentrate and stay focused. All very well and I would have been for it. However, when the same idol-worship, that should have been a private and personal affair becomes politically exploited communal affair, there are great challenges and dangers. Some of these are:
1. Keeping People From Scholarly Pursuits. Hinduism, the religion that I respect most, is all about scholarly pursuits. I wrote in my ‘A Quieter Mumbai – Is It A Pipedream?‘ that the name of the country Bharat is a combination of two Sanskrit words Bha (Knowledge) and Rat (Absorbed in); and that Bharat literally means a country whose people are absorbed in knowledge. People collectively always seek the easy way out and hence most rituals in religion abound in which people can be easily swayed to join. For example, our priests openly exhort us to offer to an idol thinking of the idol as the real God. Scholars are supposed to reason out things; our religion is perhaps the only religion that has encouraged reasoning (Arjuna did it with our Lord Krishna even in the battlefield). So, if you reason out such offerings to the idols, you would conclude, as I did on my page ‘Make Your Own Quotes’:
When the Chinese pilgrims Fa-Hein and Huien-Tsang visited India in the 5th and 7th centuries AD (during the Gupta dynasty), they were impressed by the scholarly pursuits of our people and Brahmins. Indeed, Baidyanath Saraswati has brought out in ‘Swaraj in Education’ how Kashi (now Varanasi or Benaras) grew into a great seat of learning surpassing other civilisational centres of the world including Rome and Mecca. Except for Bihar, they didn’t find a single place in the entire route of their pilgrimage in India where idol worship was being performed. Whenever, people deviated from the scholarly religious pursuits our religious leaders tried to bring us back such as Swami Vivekananda and Guru Nanak.
Take the latter, Guru Nanak, for example. The incident at Jagannath Puri, just before the annual rath yatra has Guru Nanak being invited for the Aarti at the temple has been recorded in our history.
The Guru visited the temple not to offer Aarti to Lord Krishna but to teach the people that the worship of God is superior to the worship of the deity. It was the evening time and the priests brought a salver full of many lighted lamps, flowers, incense and pearls and then all stood to offer the salver to their enshrined idol-god. The ceremony was called ‘Aarti’, a song of dedication. The high-priest invited the Guru to join in the god’s worship. The Guru did not join their service which enraged the priests. On being asked the reason the Guru explained that a wonderful serenade was being sung by nature before the invisible altar of God. The sun and the moon were the lamps, placed in the salver of the firmament and the fragrance wafted from the Malayan mountains was serving as incense. The Guru, therefore, instead of accepting the invitation of the high-priest to adore the idol, raised his eyes to the heaven and exhorted people to worship God directly rather than through the idol of God.
The sad part is that a small percentage of Hindus chose to become Sikh (learned or taught) and chose the easy way out to form a separate religion rather than to seek religious reforms from within.
2. Environmental and Other Damages. There is a great deal of debate, for example, on the environmental degradation due to visarjan of the huge idols, for example, particularly of our water bodies. In congested cities and towns (and we have only that variety), traffic problems get multiplied during such public idol-worship due to both: the pandals coming up on the roads and the almost everyday processions. Noise that affects us all aurally and adding to hygiene and medical problems is now too large to be ignored. Many of our people are now becoming gradually deaf.
3. Dangerous Trend of Intolerance. Most right-minded and sane minded people feel that such public show of idol worship is as far from religion as we can get and is only with vested commercial and political interests. However, such is the demonstrated intolerance of the mobs that are exploited for these that most of these people have to now cower in fear of violence. Imagine religion leading to violence! However, when mobs do such things that should be individual and personal and private choices, reason is often the victim. Such competitive intolerance amongst communities does no good to people but is the bread and butter of politicians and those who have to gain by dividing people along religious lines.
4. Keeping Us From Our Obligation towards Humanitarian Issues and Causes. Yes, idol-worship does provide focus to us. However, now a stage has reached when we can do without such focus. Recently, we have found out through the audits of the four largest temples in India that the offerings in these temples are enough to feed our country for the next 200 years. And yet, we have the largest number of poor in the world in India. In Human Growth Indices our country ranks a lowly 140 or so. The conclusion to be drawn is that our people would do anything to save their own souls by offering to the idols in the temples rather than giving directly to people in need. That’s utterly selfish use of idol-worship, diametrically opposite of the virtues that are extolled in all the articles that I have read.
5. Not in Keeping with the Times. There are other religions which opposed reforms and tried to become as medieval as possible. A flagrant example of these is Jihad in the name of God. We, on the other hand, were much better off with assimilation of modernity in our thoughts whilst doing away with anti-social traditions such as Sati, Untouchability, and Child-marriage. The open idol-worship (as opposed to personal and private) is taking us backwards to medieval times. As I wrote in my ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?’:
‘God is within us and all around us. We neither have to go to mountains, nor churches, mosques and temples to worship Him or Her. Collective worshipping of God or gods helps no one except to divide communities (who are also the same God’s creations and hence related to us) and only helps the politicians or so called custodians of faith who thrive from such polarization.’
If you read the full article, you will agree with me that the reasons to have collective worship of God or gods no longer exist. Religion and such devotion should increasingly become private and personal, if at all.
The need of the hour is for us individually and collectively engage ourselves in poverty-alleviation programmes, education of the deprived and infrastructure building rather than dissipating time, energy and effort in telling God to save us and our should or our community or our nation.
Goodness is another name for God and is the most relevant in the modern times.
India is a nation of debates, discussions and controversies. Our news channels generate enough in a week to last us a few lifetimes. If you listen to a news hour debate anchored by Arnab Goswami, for example, you would conclude that he, by himself, can account for a major part of global-warming.
Religious controversies, however, are not just an Indian phenomenon; all over the world, religious fervour and fanaticism can result into tempers running high, killings and violence in the name of God and Religion. The more anyone would want to liberate the world from ritualistic adherence to religion, the more anyone would desire a world free from fundamentalist hydra-heads, the more these mushroom everywhere. Historically, when Mankind drifted away from God and Godliness, many right-minded saints, gurus and incarnations of God Himself descended on earth to show the right path to the people. However, it appears that the Devil is perhaps as strong and more wily than God that people easily become the followers of the former and require reminders, again and again, to align themselves with God.
The above were my first reactions on seeing the premiere of Harinder Sikka’s Nanak Shah Fakir on 16th April 2015 in PVR, Juhu, Mumbai; and the ban on the movie in Punjab engineered by SGPC (Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee) and a few other organisations ostensibly representing the best interests of Sikhs. Whilst discussing the ills of Kalyug over Satyug, Guru Nanak brought out that there is a great positive in Kakyug; which is that whilst in Satyug you required someone to pray for you, in Kalyug you are one to one with God. Nothing stands between you and God.
(Poster courtesy: www.nanakshahfakir.co.in)
SGPC and other organisations haven’t seen the writing on the wall if they feel that they are intermediaries between us and God. They are as much out of sync as various Hindu organisations including militant ones who tell you what is acceptable to Hindus. They don’t keep you intact because of common culture and love but because of threat of violence in case you don’t listen to them. Incidentally, Guru Nanak and the movie shunned violence but the modern protectors of our religion think nothing of keeping their flock together through threat of violence.
And, as I write this, Harinder Sikka after receiving directions from Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh has decided to withdraw the movie for the time being even though he had earlier decided to go ahead with the release of the movie on 17th April with the above poster despite opposition from SGPC, DSGMC and Akal Takht mainly because portrayal of Sikh Gurus on the celluloid is not permitted. The movie has also been banned in UK bowing to the sentiments of the Sikh community.
I feel that Harinder Sikka and his team (Cast of Arif Zakaria (playing Mardana), Puneet Sikka (Harry’s daughter playing Guru Nanak’s elder sister Nanaki, Shraddha Kaul, Anurag Arora, Adil Hussain (playing landlord Rai Bular), Narendra Jha and Tom Alter; Music of Uttam Singh; Sound of Rosul Pookutty; and Cinematographer AK Bir) deserve to be congratulated for an outstanding movie on several counts.
Firstly, the idea behind the movie and its focus. I am convinced that Harry Sikka must have been chosen by God to take up such a project. Sri Guru Granth Sahib has a mention of such blessings showered by God on the chosen ones. The focus throughout the movie is on Guru Nanak and his teachings. There is no other side story; there is no attempt at direct teaching by the chronicler of the movie Mardana, for example or by the movie makers.
One of the examples of stunningly beautiful cinematography of the movie (Pic courtesy ibnlive.in.com)
Secondly, I like the anecdotes that have been selected from the life of Guru Nanak. These have been selected with an eye on their current relevance. Once again, rather than forcefully and imposingly preaching, these have been as gently brought out as we imagine Guru Nanak to be. There are, for example:
Guru Nanak as a young boy refusing to wear the holy thread Janeyu that every Hindu male is required to wear by religion. This was Guru Nanak’s first opposition to ritualistic adherence to religion rather than binding oneself with God.
Nanak selecting a friend and consort who was always booed as Marjana (Cursed to die) and calling him Mardana. Mardana, the rebab player, a Muslim, accompanies Guru Nanak wherever he goes and gives musical accompaniment to his raagas.
Nanak being sent by his father Mehta Kalu (Full name Kalyan Chand Das Bedi) with 20 rupees “to do business”. Nanak buys food with the money and distributes amongst saints and poor. When questioned by his father, he responds that he has done Sachcha Sauda or “True Business”. It would be sometime before his father would understand. The movie indeed brings out how Rai Bular, the local landlord and Nanak’s elder sister Bebe Nanaki were the first to have recognise divine qualities in him even when he was a boy.
Nanak selling baajra at Sultanpur Mandi and whilst emptying the bowls in buyers’ bags, getting stuck at the count of terah (13), since terah also means ‘yours’ (in this case God’s). A complaint is made against him to Daulat Khan Lodhi, employer of Nanaki’s husband, through whom the job was given to Nanak. But, when the gunny-bags of grains are counted, there is no discrepancy!
Nanak’s wedding with Sulakhani and the mature understanding relationship that he had with her. At the end of the movie, Guru Nanak, back from an Udaasi (travel) to spread the word of God, is seen leaning on the shoulders of their two sons, Sri Chand and Lakshmi Chand and telling them the simple essence of his teachings:
Vand Chhako: Share with others in need. Kirat karo: Earn or make a living honestly without fraud or exploitation. Naam Japna: Meditate on God’s name.
Nanak was thirty years old, in the year 1499 when he went to meditate and bathe beside the river Kali Bein (Black River), accompanied by Mardana. Mardana later discovered Nanak’s clothes on the bank but Nanak was missing. A search was mounted for him including divers sent by Daulat Khan but there was no success. Everyone, except Babe Nanaki, assumed that he had drowned. Three days later, Nanak emerged from the river alive. He had achieved Enlightenment and the locals started calling him Guru. The very first words that he uttered after his Enlightenment were: “Na koi Hindu; na koi Mussalman” (There is no Hindu; there is no Muslim). This led to his prime teaching: Ek Omkar, there is One God.
Soon after his Enlightenment, Guru Nanak, accompanied by Mardana, went on his first Udasi (travel) to Bengal, Assam and Manipur (Between the year 1500 to 1524, Guru Nanak undertook five Udaasis, covering a distance of more than 28000 kms, in all four directions, as far as Tibet, Ceylon, Kashmir, Baghdad, Mecca and Medina.
The movie brings out some remarkable anecdotes during the Udaasis. The incident of his having accepted the invitation of a low-caste artisan, Bhai Lallo and rejected that of the rich landlord Malik Bhago was well covered. When Malik Bhago was enraged, Guru Nanak asked for the two meals: one from Lallo’s house and one from Bhago’s. He produced milk from the former and blood from the latter. Thus, in his simple but clear way of teaching, he brought home the difference between honest work and exploitation in order to obtain riches.
The second anecdote very well covered was at Hasan Abdal, near Rawalpindi. Guru Nanak, Bhai Mardana and a congregation gathered at the foot if the hill, atop which a Muslim priest Bawa Wali Qandhari had established his dera next to the only source of water there. Since Guru Nanak’s congregation was thirsty, Guru Nanak sent Bhai Mardana to request Wali Qandhari to release water for them. The latter angrily turned down the plea. Mardana was asked by Guru Nanak to go up again and request for water. Reluctantly he did and Wali Qandhari derisively asked Mardana to tell Guru Nanak to directly appeal to his God for water. Guru Nanak then lifted a stone over sand, dug with his hands and produced water. Meanwhile Wali Qandhari’s pond began to dry. Enraged he launched a huge rock down the hill in order to crush Guru Nanak and his followers. When the hurling rock came charging towards Guru Nanak, he merely touched it with his hand and the rock stopped. Wali Qandhari witnessed this and suddenly realised that Guru Nanak was a messenger of God and he then fell at Guru’s feet. We all know that the spot of this miracle is marked by Gurudwara Panja Sahib.
My favourite incident of Guru Nanak’s Udaasis, accompanied by my favourite hymn, has been depicted so well in the movie that it left me stunned. The incident at Jagannath Puri, just before the annual rath yatra has Guru Nanak being invited for the Aarti at the temple.
The Guru visited the temple not to offer Aarti to Lord Krishna but to teach the people that the worship of God is superior to the worship of the deity. It was the evening time and the priests brought a salver full of many lighted lamps, flowers, incense and pearls and then all stood to offer the salver to their enshrined idol-god. The ceremony was called ‘Aarti’, a song of dedication. The high-priest invited the Guru to join in the god’s worship. The Guru did not join their service which enraged the priests. On being asked the reason the Guru explained that a wonderful serenade was being sung by nature before the invisible altar of God. The sun and the moon were the lamps, placed in the salver of the firmament and the fragrance wafted from the Malayan mountains was serving as incense. The Guru, therefore, instead of accepting the invitation of the high-priest to adore the idol, raised his eyes to the heaven and uttered the following Shabad as Aarti (Punjabi: Kaisi aarti hoy…)
“The sun and moon, O Lord, are thy lamps; the firmament
Thy salver; the orbs of the stars, the pearls enchased in it.
The perfume of the sandal is Thine incense; the wind is
Thy fan; all the forests are Thy flowers, O Lord of light.
What worship is this, O Waheguru (God)?
This hymn and the scene in the movie at the sea-shore are a powerful message against ritualistic observance of religion, meaningless and fruitless practices and institutions. Instead, one should directly be with God as a supplicant.
My favourite scene of the movie (Pic courtesy: www.sikhsiyasat.net)
If I have to sum up the movie in one word, I would call it outstanding. And yet, the movie has controversies about it. The media talks about “objectionable scenes in the movie” but no one has specifically brought out as to what is objectionable. So, we are left to wonder whether the so-called guardians of religion have their egos hurt that such a fine movie has been made not because of them, but, in spite of them. Guru Nanak cautioned us all against giving in to haume (I am); five centuries later, is it that the guardians of religion themselves are ruled by haume?
Secondly, doesn’t Guru Nanak belong to all of us surpassing the boundaries of religion? In which case, does our personal observance of his teachings have to be coloured by some intermediaries?
Whilst on this issue, and it is a very touchy issue, the very first utterance of Guru Nanak, after Enlightenment is that there is no Hindu and there is no Mussalman. Five centuries later, we are propagating that even Hindus and Sikhs are different! If that is indeed the case then who exactly is going to reform the religious practices of Hindus and Muslims that Guru Nanak had set out to do? Why is it that idol worshipping is as prevalent today as it was many centuries back? Why are even elections in our so-called democratic society fought on basis of castes that Guru Nanak sought to eradicate? I have visited many gurdwaras and the ritualistic practice of sukh-aasan of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (Resting of SGGS for the night) would compete with the ritualistic aarti of Jagannath Puri that Guru Nanak was opposed to. If Guru Nanak was to be born again, he would surely tell that when his tenth successor Gobind Singh ordained, “Guru Granth ko maaniyo, pargat Guran ki deh” (“Consider the Granth as your Guru now onwards; wherever the Granth is present, the Guru is bodily present”), he meant the observance of the teachings contained in SGGS and not ritualistically following it as the flesh and body of the Gurus. Guru Nanak wrote about one fifth of the Shlokas in the SGGS and many of these bring out how to be a true Muslim or Hindu sans the rituals. Even in the movie, when Daulat Khan asks him to do the Namaaz with them, he joins. But, when he is told that although he sat with them, he hardly said the Namaaz; Guru Nanak brought out that even they didn’t do so since whilst their lips moved, their minds were elsewhere! Why do we forget all his teachings and observe religion in rituals only?
The other day someone asked me as to why the Sikhs (the word Sikh, to me, has much greater meaning than the narrow confines of religion that were, in any case, opposed by Guru Nanak himself. The word means “the taught” or learned or one who has gained consciousness through his true intellectual growth) have prospered and survived many centuries after the Gurus? My instant response was that the Sikh gurus lived with their people through adversity and kept the flock together through personal sacrifices and examples. A Sikh, therefore, finds his way out of any adversity, trials and tribulations. His faith in oneness of God makes him so brave that he can battle against totally hopeless situations and emerge a winner (the Battle of Saragarhi, for example, on 12 Sep 1897, had 21 Sikhs of 4th Battalion of Sikh Regiment under the British fighting against 10000 Afghans; read ‘Battle of Saragarhi‘ on Wikipedia recorded by the UN as the bravest battle in the world ). Who were the leaders after our Gurus who were fired by the same spirit of sacrifice and selflessness? The factionalism both in our religion and politics, in the current world, is to be seen to be believed. Most of it is based on haume.
One of the arguments against the movie, surprisingly, is that “sentiments of the Sikhs have been hurt”. I have brought out in a series of articles (For example, read: ‘Who Are The “People” Whose “Sentiments Need To Be Respected”‘ and ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?’) that people or mobs do not always have the best sense. If they did in history, for example, we didn’t require the likes of Guru Nanak to bring them to the right path. Lets not follow the edict blindly that Sikh Gurus cannot be depicted on-screen. First of all, as the makers have clarified no human being is represented as the Guru; he being depicted only through a computer graphic. Secondly, if hundreds and thousands of pictures and write-ups are available on the net, in the books, movies, and on the television, why only in the movie that these are not permitted? And, most importantly, the movie makers have taken no license to distort history; the events have been, to the best of my knowledge, brought out as historically recorded.
Guru Nanak was one voice against the social ills of his times. He was eminently successful but now we are back to square one. Now is the time when a movie such as Nanak Shah Fakir should be most welcome and seen by all classes and conditions of men and women everywhere. The region of Punjab that Guru Nanak was born in and lived in has the menace of drug-addiction amongst the youth. His teachings would be most relevant to such misguided elements. Religious fundamentalism has shown its ugly ahead in the world again and there is violence and killings in various parts of the world; just as it was Babar’s forces that unleashed unheard of violence in India that was depicted at the end of the movie. We need the teachings of Guru Nanak all over again. Greater part of India is once again in the grip of idol worshipping, corruption, intolerance and the like. We need a messenger of God like Guru Nanak to do away with the dhund (mist) of ignorance and bless the people with chaanan (Light).
So, rather than banning, opposing or protesting against Harry Sikka’s movie, we should ensure that as many people as possible should see it and profit from Guru Nanak’s messages of one God and oneness with God, no haume, no religious and caste divides, Vand Chhako, Kirat Karo and Naam Japna. As the makers of the movie have proclaimed, all proceeds from the sale of tickets would be used to further the teachings of Guru Nanak.
Historically, and I am talking about many hundred years ago or so, the Indian record of racial and communal indiscrimination had been better than the world’s average. At one time in our history, we didn’t require the kind of advice that the US President Barack Obama gave to Indians through his talk to the Delhi students recently when he visited us as the Chief Guest for the Republic Day Parade. Obama reminded predominantly Hindu India about the rights of minorities and the challenges the developing nation faced about religious pluralism.
“No society is immune from the darkest impulses of men,” said Obama. “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.”
For many painful years the Europeans and Americans suffered the adverse and in case of Europe horrible effects of racial discrimination. The German concept of Master Race (die Hessenrasse) was adopted as a Nazi ideology. The German ubermensch (overman or superman) was a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzche and finally adopted by Adolf Hitler as one of the significant thoughts behind his desire to purge the world of other than pure white Nordic race. The end result was the Holocaust in which approximately six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis. The “Final Solution” was a Nazi term used to refer to their plan to abrogate the Jewish race during World War II. The race extermination of the Jews was the summit of the Nazis anti-Semitic hatred. The massacre of the Jews was invoked in stages. Here is one of the many horrible pictures of the pogroms carried out by the Nazis:
(Pic courtesy: www.kalleiceberg.blogspot.com)
Barack Obama’s own country, the USA, had the concept of Master Race in the context of Master – Slave relations and even provided a pseudo-scientific justification for slavery based on superior race’s relations with an inferior race. During the colonising period, anti-Catholicism was at its peak. In 1915 the Ku Klux Klan re-emerged on a national level, preaching anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism; it amassed more than 4 million members. In American history, it was as late as in October 1964 that Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting the racial inequality prevalent in the American society. Nevertheless, the immediate after-effect of 9/11 was that anyone of Asian origin and supporting a beard was targeted simply because the 9th September 2001 attacks in New York and Washington DC that killed nearly 3000 people were coordinated by an organisation called Al-Qaeda that had roots in Afghanistan and whose leader Osama bin Laden and many others in the organisation supported free-flowing beards. It is only later that it occurred to America not to alienate an entire community in reprisal for attacks by a handful.
Ku Klux Klan (Pic courtesy: www.time.com)
The European record of Wars based on religion is quite pathetic and indeed violent. From the 7th to 8th centuries of Muslim Conquests to Christian Crusades and finally Wars of Religion of 16th to 17th centuries killed millions of people. The Christians even fought a Hundred Years War between themselves, euphemistically called Wars of Reformation.
India, on the other hand, had a great tradition of religious and racial tolerance. For the first time in our history, we were exposed to large scale religious intolerance by the Muslim kings that ruled over us. It started sometime in the 11th century. These rulers, unlike others from Central Asia retained their religious identity and created legal and administrative systems that superseded the systems in India based on religious and racial tolerance. They, for the first time in the history of India, also indulged in the hated and much bandied about word: Conversions; that is, forcing, inducing, facilitating and motivating people of indigenous religions to convert to Islam. The cruel and violent exploits of the Afghan warlord Mahmud of Ghazni (early 11th century), Muhammad Ghori (from Ghor in Afghanistan), Mamluk, Khalji, Tughlaq, Timur, Babur, Aurangzeb and Nadir Shah are only too well known for their cruelty and atrocities. Even at that, some of the rulers such as Akbar the Great (11 Feb 1556 to 27 Oct 1605) found a way of merging their religion with the religion in India. He was as orthodox a Muslim as any of his predecessors. However, so impressed was he with the Sufi practice in India and the good in various religions that he integrated them all into a common belief called Din-e-Ilahi.
The Ibādat Khāna (House of Worship) was a meeting house built in 1575 CE by the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) at Fatehpur Sikri to gather spiritual leaders of different religious grounds so as to conduct a discussion on the teachings of the respective religious leaders. (Pic courtesy: en.wikipedia.org)
Therefore, if we really trace the seeds of modern-day religious Intolerance in India, these were laid during the century and a half leading to India’s independence on 15th August 1947. As is easy to visualise these were politically exploited for vested interests. The British openly propagated a policy of Divide and Rule, which served their political and military aims quite well. We were puppets in their hands. However, just as we learnt the system of dowry from the Europeans and then left them far behind in its practice; similarly, as soon as the politicians of the sub-continent realised the political advantages to be gained from dividing people along religious lines, they left their original exponents the British far behind. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan excelled in it before independence and the Indian politicians learned to stay in power through this after independence.
For several decades after independence the only ruling party in the country, the Congress, learnt to exploit the minorities and dubbed this appeasement of minorities as Secularism. It was so successful in this game of exploiting minorities that any voice even remotely critical of this pseudo-secular approach was promptly dubbed as anti-secular. It very often rallied all so-called ‘secular’ parties behind its plank in order to keep at bay any opposition to its rule.
Lets, for example, take the infamous Shah Bano Case of April 1985 in the regime of Rajiv Gandhi. Shah Bano Begum, mother of five children and an old woman (62 years old) was divorced by her husband in 1978 as per the Islamic practice prevalent in the country. She filed and won a criminal case in the Supreme Court of India. The court ruled that she was entitled to alimony from her husband as per the law of the land. However, since Muslims were an assured vote-bank for the Congress, the Indian Parliament reversed the judgment of its highest court buckling under pressure from Muslim orthodoxy. Since the Congress enjoyed absolute majority in the parliament, it caused to pass the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 and diluted the intent of the Supreme Court in yet another act of appeasement of minority, in this case Muslims.
The infamous Shah Bano case (Pic courtesy: www.youtube.com)
The main opposition to Congress came from a splinter party formed in 1951 by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and called Jana Sangh that was in response to Congress’s pseudo-secularism. The leaders of the party in succession after the death of SP Mookerjee were Deen Dayal Sharma, Atal Behari Vajpayee and then LK Advani. The party was widely regarded as the political arm of Hindu nationalist organisation called the RSS or the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh. After Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in the country in June 1975 when her election was set aside by Allahabad High Court on the ground of misuse of official machinery in her election campaign, in 1977, Jayaprakash Narayan led a successful campaign and a collision of parties under the banner of Janata Party came to power in 1977. This experiment didn’t last long and the Janata government collapsed in 1979. Bharatiya Janata Party emerged in 1980 from the break-up of Janata Party.
The formation of BJP was followed by a longish period of communal violence and it was widely perceived by the party under LK Advani that its Hindu revanchist strategy directly led to its forming the government at centre under Atal Behari Vajpayee. LK Advani, of course, was the mastermind of Ram Janambhoomi movement that eventually led to the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhaya on 6th Dec 1992. Waves of violence emerged in the country following this and over 2000 people were killed, at least half of them in Bombay riots of early 1993 that became, amongst others, the subject of Mani Ratnam’s famous 1995 movie Bombay starring Arvind Swamy and Moinisha Koirala.
Babri Masjid just before its demolition by Kar Sevaks (Pic courtesy: indiatoday.intoday.in)
Before that, the so called secular party Congress masterminded anti-Sikh riots in the capital New Delhi itself for four days after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in her residence at the hands of her own Sikh bodyguards Beant Singh and Satwant Singh. By an independent estimate approximately 10000 Sikhs including women and children were mercilessly massacred by frenzied mobs incited by Congress leaders. The worst was that her son Rajiv Gandhi was anointed as the Prime Minister and he tried to justify the massacre by his now infamous utterance, “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes”. Thirty years later the victims of this pogrom are still to find justice.
A scene of 1984 massacre of Sikhs in the capital of India (pic courtesy: www.en.wikipedia.org)
And then, of course, the Feb 2002 Godhara Riots took place. The initial cause was reported to be the burning of a train on 27 Feb 2002 in Godhara, Gujarat that caused the death of 58 pilgrims returning from Ayodhaya. The resultant riots in reprisal resulted in the massacre of approximately 1000 people, mostly Muslims. The case has been widely used as the cause of Muslim terrorism both indigenous and from across the border. In a game of pot calling the kettle black, the Congress took the government of the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi (now Prime Minister) to task for allowing the rioters free hand over the next 72 hours or so to settle scores.
Godhara Riots (Pic courtesy: inewsindia.com)
The fact of the matter is that political parties of all hues and leanings have found it expedient to play the communal card or the so called secular card in direct or indirect attempts to garner assured votes. Therefore, after coming to power, even though the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assiduously steered clear from the manifestation of religious ideology of his party BJP or its ideological parent organisation RSS, the Hindu revanchists have started the process of Ghar Wapasi (Reverse Conversions of those Hindus who had earlier converted to Islam or Christianity) and many other controversial movements that have actually called to question our secular leanings. Recently, Prakash Javedkar, a BJP MP from Rajya Sabha and BJP official spokesman mooted the idea of dropping the two words ‘Secular’ and ‘Socialist’ from the Preamble to the Indian Constitution. These words were incorporated in the Preamble in the year 1976.
It is in this background that Barack Obama said: “The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts; it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe and rejoice in the beauty of every soul,” said the president, who namechecked prominent Indian Muslims, Sikhs and sportswomen. “It’s when all Indians, whatever your faith, go to the movies and applaud actors like Shah Rukh Khan. When you celebrate athletes like Milkha Singh, or Mary Kom,” he said.
The present Prime Minister Narender Modi came to power as the 15th PM of the country in May 2014 with BJP winning 282 of National democratic Alliance (NDA)’s 336 seats of the Lok Sabha’s 543 seats. This means that not just the NDA, but even the BJP has absolute majority (272 seats required) in the Lok Sabha. During Obama’s recent visit, the media (both India and American) went ballistic about the growing personal relationship between the two leaders. However, Modi is the same leader who was previously denied a US visa following accusations that he tacitly facilitated the Godhara anti-Muslim riots in his state Gujarat in 2002 wherein he was the Chief Minister.
A series of attempts by rightwing Hindu groups to hold mass conversion ceremonies and somewhat mysterious fires at churches have sparked controversy in recent months. Last week the hardline Vishnu Hindu Parishad group claimed to have “re-converted” more than 20 Christians in the southern state of Kerala. The organisations come from the same broad political family as Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
In this background, lets ask the question again: Is there real danger of the latent communal disharmony blowing over into large scale unrests and violence that would undermine India taking its rightful place as an emerging economic and political power? The answer to this is sadly in the affirmative due to several counts.
The first is the tacit policy being adopted by Pakistan’s terrorist organisations supported both covertly and overtly by those in power to bleed India by a thousand cuts either by themselves or in collusion with home-grown terrorists and supporters to their cause. It is in their interest to cause as many communal unrests as possible and weaken India. Just like the 2002 Godhara Riots, every communal violence in India helps their cause.
The second is the success rate of using the religion and caste cards by political parties. They have tasted the blood of vote bank politics by exploiting the communal passions and are unlikely to see reason in a hurry.
The third is the revanchist attitudes by communities to undo the historic wrongs done to them. In this we would do well to keep in mind what Obama said: “No society is immune from the darkest impulses of men”. It won’t do any good to revert to a selected point in history when the others were on the wrong foot. Take the track record of both the major parties. The Congress, for example, has been calling BJP communal on the basis of such acts as Babri Masjid demolition and Godhara Riots. The BJP has been equally strident in pointing out the track record of communal riots in Congress ruled states including the national shame of Sikh Riots in the capital of India post the assassination of Smt. Indira Gandhi. Similarly, any attempts to alienate the Muslim community on the basis of historic wrongs done by Muslim rulers of erstwhile India are intrinsically wrong. Just as USA quickly realised post 9/11 that alienating and isolating indigenous Muslim community was not in the interest of America; similarly, sane thoughts should prevail in India.
The fourth is the emotional nature of religion as is practised in India. Every religion believes in one God but it has to be their God only and no other God. Surprisingly, even though our religion is decided for us by our parents at an age when we don’t even understand what religion is, when we grow up we are prepared to (somewhat blindly) give up our lives for it. A quote from my Facebook page ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ brings this out succinctly:
The fifth is the current situation. From all accounts, after nine months of being in government, Narendra Modi and to some extent his party have earned people’s appreciation for doing everything within their means to restore governance and India’s image abroad. In this scenario, Congress, that had been so far in India’s independent history triumphantly proclaiming that there is no alternative (TINA) to Congress, seems to be realising that it is headed for oblivion. There is only one hope and that is if BJP falls prey to communal machinations, riots and violence. This actually increases the probability of such engineered communal disharmony.
In the light of this, rather than brushing aside what Obama said, we should take it rather seriously and see to it that nothing comes in the way of India’s march towards progress. Neither political parties, nor ideological and militant organisations, nor even forces from across the border can do much harm without the help of people at large. If we as people resist being manipulated, we can yet make India into a great country, as visualised by Nobel Laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore as early as in the year 1910:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
It has been less than two years since I put up in this blog ‘Best Of ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ ‘. In these 21 months since the post and 23 months since I started with the Facebook Page called ‘Make Your Own Quotes’, a lot has happened. One, from a membership of just 30 or so, the Page has a membership of nearly 500 now. Two, a number of (nearly 300) new Quotes have been started.
Why did I start with the page? As I mentioned in the introduction of the first post, “I noticed that on the Facebook and elsewhere, there is a great penchant about putting up Quotes. These range from quotes about Love, Friendship, Politics, Life; indeed about each and every subject. Whilst reading these quotes I was stuck by the realisation that somehow we have this feeling that the sages, saints and wise-people of the past had abundance of sane-advice on all kinds of subjects; but, by a curious quirk of fate, we ourselves and fellow citizens have nothing great to offer in terms of such advice. When I started analysing this, I reached the conclusion that there is nothing simpler than giving sane advice; the answer is really blowing in the wind; it is everywhere. We only have to gather these pearls around us and weave them in a garland”. That’s how I started this Facebook page called ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ with an introduction: “There is nothing simpler than giving sane advice; you don’t have to follow great teachers. Make your own quotes and let others follow you.”
This venture started on the 25th of Feb 2013 and very soon it would be two years old. I have received tremendous interest from friends in these Quotes and I am told that around the world these Quotes are being circulated in all kinds of garbs. I have nothing against these since I shall never be making this into a commercial activity.
I like all quotes on Facebook; these provide quick and easy solutions to life’s seemingly complex problems. I believe life is as simple as Facebook; what you get is dependant upon your “settings”.
I started off by giving tips to people on how to make their own quotes, eg,:
Great Quotes Tip #1: Compare Life, Love, Relationships etc to something mundane and infer “great” sounding advice out of it.Here is an (original example): “Friends should be like electricity wires; opposite poles, running parallel and lighting up lives by meeting”. For effect, inscribe this on a totally unrelated picture of, say, a Frog in a Pond. Wanna try your hand at it; go ahead….nothing is simpler! Try comparing Life to Beans!! Go ahead, now that you have joined this site, you will eventually follow your own quotes!!!
Here is therefore the second tranche of Best of ‘Make Your Own Quotes’.
Going into historical background of things has been a favourite subject with me. We have documented some of our history whereas most of the important one is in the form of gospel, ie, passed down from one to other without being written. However, one important aspect of the history is the history of not just the events but history of our emotions. This is important since it has been asserted that God is beyond emotions. So, how then did the first man or woman get these emotions?
Now this is totally tongue in cheek and about my life in the armed forces which are largely hierarchal and authoritarian:
The subjects of God and Religion are close to my heart; both being the inventions of Man to keep sanity. I have written a number of articles about this in this blog. The most comprehensive is the one that tracks the origin of God and Religion, viz, Whose God Is It Anyway? I have argued that whilst we do need God, but Religion has to move away from being community activity to something personal. Here is a Quote about God:
I continue to indulge in Alternate Definitions of words, as in the previous edition. Here is one on Secretariat:
Rains always bring out the romantic spirit in me. Here is one about the rains:
Here is another:
As we move into a world where we are in crowds and yet alone and lonely, I have frequently given quotes on this subject. Here is the first one:
Here is another:
And yet another (though all these appeared at different times):
And a penultimate one on the same subject:
Finally, if we have ever examined sadness, we would have probably reached the same conclusion as me:
I frequently bring out the comparisons between Faith and Science; and, my way of looking at it is that both are the same except that the differences are more entrenched in our minds than similarities. Taste the following:
Whilst on this subject, I am often amused at the prevalent distinction between God-made and Man-made; it is as if the latter really have equal powers to make things as God!
I also frequently indulge in the witty, humorous and the light-hearted. For that, I have a running series called ‘My Moments Of Madness’. Here is one such post:
Here is another:
And another:
Here is one in which I have even expressed ‘Hope’ after Life!:
Here is another funny one, addressed to God:
Another running series is Alternate Definitions. Some of these are merely punning on words; but, these would make you feel. Taste the first one about my specialisation or field of interest: Maritime (I spent 37 years in the Indian Navy and am retired now):
Every one of us have heard the word Anglicised. Here is my definition of it:
Lets take a few about the attributes of the Indians. First of all, we are really very filthy people and litter everywhere with abandon. Here is a take on that:
Our traffic conditions are amongst the most chaotic in the world. Indeed, we kill more people on the roads than during wars. Here is a take on that:
And the third is the Indian Politics. But then, when I put it up, foreigners told me that it is the same in their country too:
As I told you, I spent nearly 37 years in the Navy and hence sea is in my veins. There are several Quotes on this theme; the most popular of these was:
Here is another one about the same romance of the seas:
Here is one about the sea itself and how it changed my life:
The four lettered word Life is a favourite topic with me. I give you a few quotes about this subject. Here is the first one:
Here is another:
And another since Life is such a vast subject:
And yet another:
This one about Life should make you think:
And a last one about Life:
Let me now give you three at random before finishing with this edition of Best of Make Your Own Quotes. There are, of course, many more and you can await the next edition. This one is about the limitation of Reason and Reasoning:
This one is being happy about what the sages and saints say; that is, Life is a Myth:
And to end this edition, here is a quote about my ability to make you look at God’s world differently:
I am sure by now I have convinced you to subscribe to ‘Make Your Own Quotes’. What do you have to pay for the subscription? Nothing; not a cent, pence or paisa. It is totally free. All that you have to do is to like the Page and these Quotes would be delivered to your timeline automatically. You can, on the page, make your own Quotes and share these too with others too. Dozens of subscribers have done it already.
In the history of mankind, a period of about a thousand years is required to visualise a civilizational historical trend. In the case of God being born amongst us; whether it was Mohammad or Jesus or Krishna or Ram or Buddha; the unanswered question that often lurks at the back of my mind is why did God favour particular periods in history of mankind to come to us as man; all within a thousand years or so? Could it be that since mankind was taking its first steps to be civilized, our idolatry for those who gave us direction as a civilized society raised human beings to the level of God? (Read: ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?‘) After that, when such idolatry continued in history, it fortified the concept of God and those who didn’t agree with these visible manifestations of God, were regarded as heretics? How is it that God didn’t appear in His human manifestations again? Those who keep God as someone they have rightful claim on, explain that God chooses particular periods in history when human tyranny and immorality become so overwhelming that God then is born as a human being to eradicate such evil and holocaust. If that is the case, how is it that God wasn’t born amongst us even during the World Wars? Could it be that with civilization came rationalisation and now we look at all such manifestations such as Guru Nanak and Swamy Vivekananda as great but human only? Even though the Catholic church, for example, still wants proof of miracles performed by a man or woman before being ordained as a saint; the fact is that it is now becoming increasingly more difficult to convince people that miracles do occur.
Jesus’ first public ministry, where at the request of his mother, He turned water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana (Pic courtesy: www.hudsonfla.com)
Now, why should I write an article like this? Am I a heretic or an atheist? No, I believe in God and I believe in goodness. God has been with me always and I do believe that God will never forsake me. But, I do believe that time is now ripe when we should move away from human or iconic manifestation of God and see God in a different manner. What do we have to lose? Conversely, what are we losing in iconic representation of God. Well, this is what this article is all about.
First of all, lets acknowledge the fact that God gifted us Logic and Reasoning and the Power or Ability to Rationalise. He hasn’t gifted these powers to others in His Creation. It should have been inconceivable, therefore, that God would have placed himself/herself/itself beyond reasoning and logic. Therefore, unlike what guardians of God and Religion tell us, let us use reasoning and logic to understand God.
Logic and Reasoning tell us that human manifestation of God was required and was helpful in a certain period of history. Indeed, logically, one proof of the concept of God being dynamic is that when God was born as a human being in the shape of Jesus, Mohammad, Krishna, Ram or Buddha, He shattered the popularly held beliefs of those times. This, amongst other miracles He performed, proved that majority held prevalent view of that era might not have been right even though, later, majority might have started believing in the new belief that the human manifestation of God gave us.
We are now in a different period of history of mankind. We are no longer at the advent of civilized society; but, an era whence civilized society are not an exception. People may not follow these completely, but, there are no widespread differences of opinion about Good and Evil. Indeed, we have moved to a stage when learned people openly say like Reverend Emerson, “God, don’t let me try to prove by logic and reasoning that I know to be wrong.”
What are we losing in iconic representation of God? Lets take the example of the greatest religion on earth: Hinduism. More than three years back, I wrote an article titled ‘A Quieter Mumbai – Is It A Pipe-Dream?‘ I had brought out that when the Chinese pilgrims Fa-Hein and Huien-Tsang visited India in the 5th and 7th centuries AD (during the Gupta dynasty), they extensively visited India and found that idol worship was not prevalent in any part of the country except in Buddhist regions. I had also brought out that Shashi Tharoor, writing about Amartya Sen’s book ‘The Argumentative Indian’ in Newsweek of 24 Oct 05, brought out an interesting observation. “Sen”, he wrote, “is particularly critical of the Western overemphasis on India’s religiosity at the expense of any recognition of the country’s equally impressive rationalist, scientific, mathematical and secular heritage. According to Sen, “That scientific spirit of inquiry can also be seen in ancient India.” His book cites 3,500-year-old verses from the Vedas that speculate sceptically about creation, and details India’s contribution to the world of science, rationality and plural discourse – fields generally treated by Orientalists as ‘western spheres of success’.
Sri Bhagwad Gita, for example, is the world’s finest document on religious intellectualism. However, gradually, Hindus moved away from intellectualism and the Brahmins sought power for themselves by idol worshipping. Take the case of large-scale idol worshipping of Lord Ganesha in Maharashtra. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
“In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak transformed the annual domestic festival into a large, well-organized public event.[ Tilak recognized the wide appeal of the deity Ganesha as “the god for everybody”, and popularized Ganesh Chaturthi as a national festival in order “to bridge the gap between Brahmins and ‘non-Brahmins’ and find a context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them”, and generate nationalistic fervour among people in Maharashtra against the British colonial rule. Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesh in pavilions, and also established the practice of submerging in rivers, sea, or other pools of water all public images of the deity on the tenth day after Ganesh Chaturthi.”
“Under Tilak’s encouragement, the festival facilitated community participation and involvement in the form of intellectual discourses, poetry recitals, performances of plays, musical concerts, and folk dances. It served as a meeting ground for people of all castes and communities in times when, in order to exercise control over the population, the British discouraged social and political gatherings.”
What have we done to this idea 120 years later? A programme (spoof called ‘The Week That Wasn’t) by Cyrus Broacha on CNN IBN, just before Ganesh Chaturthi this year, brought out that it is merely a means of commercialism these days. It has enormous scope for inconveniencing and even hassling people through traffic snarls due to processions and pandals on roads, cacophonic noise (Read ‘State Sponsored Noise’ and ‘Who Are The People Whose Sentiments Need To Be Respected?’) and even extracting money from people by coercion.
A time has reached in our religion, now when our belief in iconic or human manifestation of God is actually keeping us away from goodness, godliness, humanity and other desirable virtues. We are using God as an excuse to do what we want to do. Our modern-day politicians, unlike Bal Gangadhar Tilak, use God and religion to divide people. We, therefore, need to have a more private and personal concept of God rather than moving Him/Her/It to the streets and even to political arena. If we don’t learn this, in another few years (say a few centuries later) it would be forced on us. God is in everything and every being. It no longer has to demonstrate its presence by being born as human being. We learnt that lesson centuries ago and now we must move on to an idea being God rather than a human being; eg: God is goodness.
If idolatry of God comes in the way of Goodness, we should be prepared to shun it. Lets not make or elevate Asarams into Gods. Don’t let past be our only guide. I believe that God gave us reasoning and rationality to make use of. If we go beyond the idolatry of God, we would then realise that God cannot be limited to mandir, masjid or gurudwara. This would also help us to stop fighting in the “name” of God. What happens when God becomes an excuse to do wrong and evil things? For example, the exponents of Jehad feel that killing people in the name of God is alright.
(Pic courtesy: theveritasnetwork.org)
As we move away from the human manifestation of God; or God as an idol or icon, we not only get over the prevalent myths and evils that are now concomitant with this, but, move towards the following individual and societal benefits:
God and religion would be in ideals and virtues not in iconic or idolatry history.
God and religion cannot be used to exploit, manipulate or divide people.
God and religion cannot become excuses to do evil things including to kill in the name of God or religion.
The amount of effort and money that we put in idol worshipping and in ensuring that our numbers grow can be used for poverty alleviation and towards ensuring that humanity prospers.
As Abba Eban (the late Foreign Affairs and Deputy PM of Israel) once said, “Men and nations behave wisely only after they have exhausted all other options.”
I think we have exhausted most other options in our Concept of God and Religion. Perhaps, it is time to start behaving wisely.
I noticed that on the Facebook and elsewhere, there is a great penchant about putting up Quotes. These range from quotes about Love, Friendship, Politics, Life; indeed about each and every subject. Whilst reading these quotes I was stuck by the realisation that somehow we have this feeling that the sages, saints and wise-people of the past had abundance of sane-advice on all kinds of subjects; but, by a curious quirk of fate, we ourselves and fellow citizens have nothing great to offer in terms of such advice. When I started analysing this, I reached the conclusion that there is nothing simpler than giving sane advice; the answer is really blowing in the wind; it is everywhere. We only have to gather these pearls around us and weave them in a garland. That’s how I started this Facebook page called ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ with an introduction: “There is nothing simpler than giving sane advice; you don’t have to follow great teachers. Make your own quotes and let others follow you.”
This venture started on the 25th of Feb 2013 and on the coming 25th of April, it would be all of two months old. I have received tremendous interest from friends in these Quotes that have not only advice, but, at times are humorous and even naughty. I give you here the best of ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ from my Facebook page for the last two months, with the promise that the best is yet to come as long as you subscribe to it by Liking the Page.
I like all quotes on Facebook; these provide quick and easy solutions to life’s seemingly complex problems. I believe life is as simple as Facebook; what you get is dependant upon your “settings”.
I started off by giving tips to people on how to make their own quotes, eg,
Great Quotes Tip #1: Compare Life, Love, Relationships etc to something mundane and infer “great” sounding advice out of it.Here is an (original example): “Friends should be like electricity wires; opposite poles, running parallel and lighting up lives by meeting”. For effect, inscribe this on a totally unrelated picture of, say, a Frog in a Pond. Wanna try your hand at it; go ahead….nothing is simpler! Try comparing Life to Beans!! Go ahead, now that you have joined this site, you will eventually follow your own quotes!!!
I followed this up with:
Great Quotes Tip #2
Take a famous Quote and make it stand on its head by a juxtaposition of words. They will really marvel at the quotes “great” and “pragmatic” message.
For example:
Where there is a way, there is a will!
Great Quotes Tip #3Simplify to the point of being ridiculous and you have a great Quote….especially if it is on a colourful picture.
Great Quotes Tip #4: Quotes about something called ‘LOVE’ will always be very popular; the best are those that don’t make any sense at all; for then they have this enigmatic quality about them, which is similar to the subject of the Quotes!
At a fairly early stage, I could make fun of my own quotes. Here is one:
Here is one of my early quotes about the reality of Poverty Alleviation Programmes:
Many times, My Quotes are regarding prevalent fads. Here is one of them:
I have made many that are simply ‘tongue in cheek’. This one was well liked. Indeed, a friend commented that in future she would think of this every time in a discussion:
I then started with Alternate Definitions of words. This one is my very first effort:
I have always been interested in Psychology and Philosophy. In this blog itself there is a section on Philosophy. Naturally, therefore, many of my quotes are on this subject. Here is one:
Some of my quotes are based on my observations and lessons that I have learnt in life. Here is one based on my observations:
I simply adored our dog Roger. I have made a number of quotes about Dog as the Master of Man. This is a simple one:
Half way through, I reminded everyone not to be rooted to the ideas of the sages and saints of the past by believing that somehow they are the only ones who could say wise things. Taste this:
Subject of God has also been favourite with me. This became my most popular Quote:
My love of dogs in general and Roger in particular is a recurring theme with me. Taste this:
I delve a lot into finding answers to Philosophical and Meta-Physical questions; questions about space, universe, God, Religion etc. I have a section called ‘Philosophy’ on my blog, wherein I give vent to these. Here is one of the quotes regarding this:
Love and Hate are subjects of Quotes for me too. Here is a genuine doubt reflected in a quote:
Whilst being on the subject of Love and Hate, here is one about Love and War and the uselessness of loving war:
All of us need some comforting thought or the other. For me, my most grateful thought has been that somehow God has not made me as miserable as He has made others. Thank God for that:
Here is a real tongue-in-cheek on the abundance of Free Advice available on the net these days, including my own!
Mahatma Gandhi believed in Simplicity. I have tried to reason out that most of Life’s lessons are simple indeed. Take a look:
Talking about Simplicity leading to Greatness, I genuinely feel that Being Poor at Heart is a great virtue indeed. The Quote below was as a result of this:
Here is my Quote on the Indian festival of Colour called Holi. This is totally tongue-in-cheek:
Love and Hate continued to fascinate me. One result was:
I considered that no subject is a taboo for me. The following is on the subject of Sex and it generated a fair deal of healthy discussion:
I also make Quotes on my observations. Here is one about great communication skills being mistaken for great knowledge:
Here is a bit of advice about giving and rendering service for others who can do nothing for you except to give you the gift of advice; but, it is the greatest gift.
Here is a humorous take on ‘forgetful husbands’. Is there another kind?
Here is another one on Free Advice:
I asked a genuine doubt if Heart has a Mind of its own. I received a number of smart answers:
And here is one about the place of Ego in Love:
Here is a real good one about the oft touted ‘Out-of-the-box’ thinking. Does it bring a smile on your face?
Here is one about taking on a popular saying and making the logic of it stand on its head. It was very well received:
Here is a dig on the ubiquitous and all powerful auditors: a necessary evil!
Ever heard of a word called Dililady? No? Well read the meaning:
Finally, let me end with one about the Mightier doing horrible things to those whom they find Meek and different; which is half the humanity or more! I cannot forget growing up as a boy belonging to a minority community in a majority state and being subjected to relentless taunts, abuses, innuendo and violence.
I am sure by now I have convinced you to subscribe to ‘Make Your Own Quotes’. What do you have to pay for the subscription? Nothing; not a paisa. It is totally free. All that you have to do is to Like the Page and it would be delivered to you on Facebook. You can make your own quotes and share these too with others.
There is no stronger and more wide-spread philosophy than the Philosophy of Convenience. Indeed, I have proved it in another article: ‘How Innocent Or Unbiased We Can Get?’ that there is only one way to get pure innocence or pure un-bias and that is the Concept of Free Will, which can be achieved only outside this universe. We have self or as Sri Guru Granth sahib calls ‘haume’ writ large on the footprints of our lives. None of us can hope to get out of this loop of seeking something for ourselves, our interests, our family interests, our community, village, town, nation; indeed anything that is ours.
The Philosophy of Our Convenience was born the day Self,Ego, ‘haume’ ‘my or mine’ were born; ie, the day the universe was created. Lets take the Concept of Happiness for example and lets say you are one of those self-sacrificing saints who does ‘everything’ for others’ happiness. In the end, you still have to reckon with this claim: “It gives me happiness to make others happy.” There is no way you can take ‘me’ out of even seemingly ‘selfless’ deeds.
One fallout of this ‘Philosophy of Convenience’ is that most – if not all – of us wish to be regarded as virtuous, no matter what we are doing. The reason is that most – if not all – of us feel that people when they look at our deeds they don’t really understand what goes through our minds when we do what we do. At other times, we detest the tendency in people to misread the thoughts of our minds and give them a different colour than the one we had intended. And the best part is that our intention is also dynamic that keeps pace with our current and ever-changing philosophy of how to be virtuous and seen as virtuous.
Each one of these were and is necessary for community or societal living. The first three are easy to understand as the products of our desire to make rules about our lives in a society or community. The last one is also not difficult to comprehend: we invented Time only for our part of the Universe, ie, one rotation of the Earth around the Sun would be 24 hours and during the revolution of the Earth in an orbit around the Sun seasons would be there depending upon if the Earth is closer to the Sun (Summer) in its elliptical orbit, or away (Winter). Living in a society on Earth, Time and Seasons help us to convert a Relative Phenomenon (Time is dependent upon the velocity of light) into an Absolute one; so much so that we tick off people who are late for work by a few minutes; or, call it a New Year at the stroke of midnight, wherever we are.
The Philosophy of Hindu Religion is that God is beyond all emotions, biases and Time; and that if we are to be one with God, we have to detach ourselves from all worldly feelings, possessions, time and even thoughts. Finding Paramatama, therefore, calls for rising above – what we call as – worldly feelings and thoughts, needs and desires. In Sri Guru Granth Sahib this condition is called ‘Jeevatya marna’ (to kill (all worldly thoughts whilst living one’s life). Total abnegation of all worldly things and total surrender to the will of God is the biggest philosophy of convenience that we have derived for ourselves. Let us examine the lines in Sri Guru Granth Sahib:
[lineate]जो नर दुख में दुख नहिं मानै। [/lineate][lineate]सुख सनेह अरु भय नहिं जाके, कंचन माटी जानै।। [/lineate][lineate]नहिं निंदा नहिं अस्तुति जाके, लोभ-मोह अभिमाना। [/lineate][lineate]हरष शोक तें रहै नियारो, नाहिं मान-अपमाना।। [/lineate][lineate]आसा मनसा सकल त्यागि के, जग तें रहै निरासा। [/lineate][lineate]काम, क्रोध जेहि परसे नाहीं, तेहि घट ब्रह्म निवासा।। [/lineate][lineate]गुरु किरपा जेहि नर पै कीन्हीं, तिन्ह यह जुगुति पिछानी। [/lineate][lineate]नानक लीन भयो गोबिंद सों, ज्यों पानी सों पानी।। [/lineate]
It says, in simple words, with the blessing of the Guru, the person who realises and keeps himself away from worldly feelings and things, understands the Creation, and becomes one with his/her Creator just as Water merges with Water.
Buddhism or the Philosophy of Moksha or Nirvana
When we examine the Truth of this advice we realise that being beyond lust, anger, greed, belongingness, sorrow, grief, shame and pride brings us closer to our inner self and hence to God. Lets say because of one’s lust a son is born and one feels a sense of fulfillment and pride in having an intelligent son; one gets angry or ashamed when he does something wrong and one is full of greed for him to do well in life. However, he is killed in an accident and one is full of intense and indescribable grief and helplessness and even frustration with God for being unnatural in recalling the son before the father. That’s the time when the wise and the saintly, through collective and generational philosophy of convenience tell you the following:
He was never yours (Only God owns everything and everybody) so why are you sorrowful?
God’s creation never dies and hence your son is reborn as someone else’s son now.
Grief and sorrow, just like happiness and pride are worldly feelings and God keeps giving us periodic hints to rise above these.
Look at the entire srishti (Creation or Universe) as your own and you will realise that you neither gained anything when you had him nor lost anything when he went away.
God loves us all and will never do anything to sadden us; it is just that understanding of His ways is beyond us all.
Various rituals were and are born out of this philosophy of convenience. In my village in Punjab, women from neighbouring houses and families used to congregate at the house of a family whereat someone had died and they would beat their chests and do maatam (mourning) so as to help the bereaved to take out intense feelings of grief at their loss. Death is not seen as the final “end”, but is seen as a turning point in the seemingly endless journey of the indestructible “atman” or soul through innumerable bodies of animals and people. Hence, Hinduism prohibits excessive mourning or lamentation upon death, as this can hinder the passage of the departed soul towards its journey ahead: “As mourners will not help the dead in this world, therefore (the relatives) should not weep, but perform the obsequies to the best of their power.” The period of mourning, therefore, last until 13 days and has various stages such as Uthala (Rising), and Chautha (fourth day).
Now what if we have all got it wrong? What if God had given us various feelings and thoughts to face them and not to run away from them? A strangely rebellious thought? No, on the other hand, it is realisation of the fact that nothing can be created by anyone other than by God, if there is one. If He is the all-powerful and the only Creator than He alone made all worldly things, feelings and thoughts. Lets say, over a period of Time (our own invention; else, it doesn’t exist), since the beginning of the Earth, we, human beings, intensified these feelings a hundred times and brought newer thoughts and biases to these. However, nothing can be created out of nothingness; sometime or the other, however weak, these feelings originated and would have been given to us by God. We worship Earth, Sky, Water, Fire etc because these are God’s creations. However, why does our philosophy of convenience goads us to run away from emotions, feelings, thoughts etc in order to discover Him? Did God create these as obstacles so that we’d cross these and then find Him; a sort of cosmic Hide and Seek?
And who are we trying to please by abnegating these God’s creations? Our God, and for the good of our soul. I think the dichotomy lies in the fact that the world has evolved as a society or community whereas such abnegation makes us do something only for one person or one soul that is our own. Where do you want to stay; as an ascetic in the hills and caves or as a social being in the world?
Don’t seek God, therefore, for yourself and for the peace of your soul. It is a downright selfish and un-godly feeling. Seek kindness, and goodness for another person, another soul and leave the rest to God to give your just reward or punishment.
Let alone run away from feelings, thoughts and emotions; I am suggesting that you own someone’s loss, feel his or her grief, face his anger, pride and greed and be kind to him or her rather than at all times being worried about obtaining Paramatama for yourself.
Three years back, Mr. NR Narayana Murthy, the founder chairman of Infosys gave a speech at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, on 09 Oc 2009. The speech was titled ‘Learning From The West’. It is worth reading this speech and I have given you the link. See what a shift of philosophy from the individual to the society can do for us Hindus. It is the need of the hour; we need it more than at any time in our history.
In my last article in Philosophy section of the blog, I wrote about ‘How Unbiased Or Innocent Can We Become? The article had this quote from Swami Vivekanand near the end: “Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. … To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here.” I concluded, therefore, that with the influences acting on our consciousness or sub-consciousness from ages and during our lives, we can never be absolutely unbiased or innocent. At best, we can be more or less unbiased or innocent than others.
Lets now descend from the stratosphere to ground reality. The fact is that perhaps never before in Indian society we were less free than we are at present; both physically and in our thinking. Satyamev Jayate, the serialised programme by Aamir Khan, is all about individual and collective freedoms and desirable restrictions thereon; for example, in the last episode, it was brought out that the unrestricted littering and pollution of water sources in India need to be checked. However, it is my firm belief that changes in societies and individuals come from within, as a response to the perceived environment. Individuals think of these changes; but, finally, they require people’s support to bring about the changes. Sometimes only they are forced upon us; such as cleanliness drive after plague in Surat or need for coastal security after 26/11 attack in Mumbai. However, such changes have limited sustainability; as soon as the threat posed by the incident recedes, we go back to our routine way of doing things.
So, what this article seeks to do is to make us aware of some of the significant issues and suggest ways out. In each one of his episodes, Aamir Khan invariably brings out about individuals and organisations that are doing a yeoman service to get over the problems. This article is a small contribution to increase awareness.
Freedom or Right to be Born and Live. We have a very high Infant Mortality Rate in India. The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births. This rate is often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country. The infant mortality rate of the world is 49.4 according to the United Nations and 42.09 according to the CIA World Factbook. As per the list of countries by infant mortality rate from the 2011 revision of the United Nations World Population Prospects report, by five years averages, India ranks at 150 in 194 countries with an IMR of 60.82. Our ranking is tucked in between that of Bangladesh and Ghana on top of us and Eritrea and Zimbabwe below us. Singapore has the lowest IMR with just 2.60 deaths per thousand. Since our death rate is 6.4 deaths per 1000, our IMR is about ten times. This means that in India ten times more children die before attaining the age of one than the number of deaths in other ages.
It would still have been alright to be complacent about these statistics. However, when the incidence of Female Infanticide is added to these, it should make us sit up and take notice. Some activists, including as brought out in an Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate episode, believe that India’s 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven – activists fear eight million female foetuses may have been aborted between 2001 and 2011. I brought out the plight of being an Indian Woman in an early article ‘Is There Reason To Celebrate Women’s Day in India?’ and how female foetuses were discovered in a well in Patiala. Wikipedia, however, holds that these claims are controversial and that the 2011 census birth sex ratio in India, of 917 girls to 1000 boys, is similar to 870-930 girls to 1000 boys birth sex ratios observed in Japanese, Chinese, Cuban, Filipino and Hawaiian ethnic groups in the United States between 1940 to 2005. They are also similar to birth sex ratios below 900 girls to 1000 boys observed in mothers of different age groups and gestation periods in the United States. I don’t agree. I feel that Female Infanticide is prevalent in India in significant numbers and even if a girl-child exercises the Right to be Born, she soon starts praying that she would be dead.
Look at the picture below. It is from the television serial on Colors channel. The series were titled ‘Na Aana Is Des Laado‘ (Don’t Come to this World Girl). It premiered on 9th March 2009, much before Aamir Khan brought it out on SJ. The story deals with the social evil of Female infanticide, and concentrates on the problems faced by women in a male-dominant world.
A scene from Colors serial ‘Na Aana Is Des Laado’
Solution. Being born is a gift of God; to live depends upon our conditions. As a society we have to realise that life starts much before the actual birth and that female infanticide is murder. A child should be allowed to be born irrespective of its sex. After having been born, it should get adequate nourishment and health-care so as to live. We keep talking of an emerging great power called India. It is total hogwash if 6 percent of Indian children die within a year of being born and millions of female foetuses are discarded because our society has little use for women. We cannot change the entire country; but, we can certainly change the way we look at things in our own families and immediate neighbourhood. Others will have as much value for Indian lives – both male and female – as we have for our own lives. Six percent IMR doesn’t suggest we value Indian lives too much.
Freedom to Choose Religion. This is a very touchy subject with us. Just like during the elections when we see that there are people whose votes have been already cast, we have our religion already chosen for us even before birth. After that, even in the kindergarten admission form ‘Religion’ has to be specified. This continues during our lives for all admission forms and other applications. Whose religion is it? It is that of our parents and their parents? We cannot dare to go outside the ambit of the religion chosen for us by our parents. We have no idea whether other religions are good or bad (actually ‘bad’ is not even an option; we are talking about religion and not potatoes or appliances); but, we are somehow told that absolute and blind loyalty to our religion is the stuff that separates us from pagans or beasts. It is therefore an acceptable thing to break the legs of or burn the house of a person who is perceived to be desecrating our religious symbols or monuments. Our religion itself might just be teaching us to look at all human beings with kindness; but, to hell with that. It is the religious practice or rituals that are more important to us. Hence, we are prepared to do irreligious things, even to kill, in order to defend our religion that our parents chose for us and about whose virtues we simply have had no idea. Some loyalty this.
Courtesy: wallpaper.diq.ru
Solution. Organised religion became the need when human beings started living in communities to be better prepared to protect themselves from animals, disease and vagaries of nature. Now that people live in cities, towns and villages, better equipped to defend themselves than many centuries ago, orgaised religions have started dividing people and are easy prey to machinations of hordes of godmen and politicians. We should, therefore, consider making religion more private than public and vulgar display of blind loyalty. Also, if all religions believe that we are God’s children, it cannot be that God as a father would look kindly on his Muslim or Christian or Hindu children and send others to rot in hell. God loves us all. (Read ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?‘)
Freedom to Live Anywhere in the Country. Now this sounds rather easy and doesn’t look like an issue at all; especially since Aamir Khan has not (yet) talked about it being an issue. Let me, therefore, give you a few facts. Two years back, in response to a PIL (Public Interest Litigation), the Supreme Court of India ruled that an Indian has an inherent right to settle down anywhere in the country. Now, why would you require a Supreme Court ruling on it? A few years back, in an election rally, I heard the Chief Minister of my home-state make an unlawful and unconstitutional statement saying, “Himachal is for Himachalis only.” Similarly, the goons of MNS want us to believe that only ‘sons-of-soil’ have the right to settle down in Maharshatra. A RAND study, a few years back, concluded that within the next two decades India would be divided into at least 50 states. Why are we becoming so parochial? Who is profiting from dividing us? This time it is not really a “foreign-hand” that is manipulating us. This time, just like pre-independence days when British ruled over us by following a ‘Divide and Rule’ policy, our own politicians too have learnt how to manipulate people by dividing them along religious, geographical, linguist and casteist lines. So, whilst earlier we lost our independence to the British, now we have lost it to the politicians. The states are now becoming more and more isolated from the concept of a united India. Within the states and cities we already have colonies of Muslims, Sikhs, Biharis, Bengalis etc. Three years back a Muslim was refused permission to buy a flat in a predominantly Hindu building in Pune. Many a times any opposition to these parochial ideas are met with threats of or actual killings.
Solution. Parochialism of this nature is anti-Indian. We have to publicly and individually shun it. We have to focus on the concept of one India rather than being divided into various regions. If we don’t do so, very soon we shall have anti-social and anti-national elements ruling over us. As an example, Maoists writ now runs large in about one third of the districts of our country. For any movement to succeed, people have to stand up to the nonsense dished out by politicians who take up the patronage of colonies and regions based on parochial interests. We, as people of free India, must stand against these. Lets ask of our candidates in the next elections that we would vote for them only if they undertake not to divide us further. As a small step, all vehicle registration plates, by law, are to be based on “modern Hindu-Arabic numerals and Roman alphabets”. Lets shun those that are in local script; these are illegal.
Courtesy: team-bhp.com
Freedom to Choose Government. “Aha, here we got you” you are bound to say, “India is the largest democracy in the world and we choose governments on the average of every five years.” Think again. Do you really exercise a choice? Is it really functional democracy? One and a half years back, on the occasion of our 62nd Republic Day I brought out in an article ‘How Proud Should We Be Of Indian Republic at 62?‘ that an elected representative in our country represents, on an average, about 9 percent of the electorate (people of voting age who are registered voters). This means that a good 90 percent of the electorate haven’t elected him/her. However, when he/she enters the parliament he starts using such arrogant words as ‘supremacy of the parliament’ (mind you not ‘supremacy of the people’ but that of his seat of “power“). And these 9 percent voters; how did they elect him/her? The only issues that he brought out to them during his/her messy election campaign were those of caste, religion, and vituperation of the other candidates and parties. Think again; what choice did you exercise whilst electing him/her? Did you exercise your choice of ‘none of the above’? Or, most likely, you only chose what appeared to be the least harmful of a band of rogues? If you did you are amongst the lucky few who actually went to vote and after going there found that your name is actually on the voters’ list (a tall order in case you happen to vote conscientiously and not enmass as people in the politically patronaged colonies do) and your vote has not already been cast after you have reached the voting booth.
Courtesy: rediff.com
Solution. We require a truly representative government in India; one where we actually exercise a choice. It wouldn’t come about unless the thinking middle-class wakes up and hold the representatives accountable. Please remember after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, when the middle class took out candle light marches for the victims and stridently took the elected representatives to task for complete absence of security, Colaba, the constituency where the attacks took place, recorded the lowest voter turn out of just 37 percent. Most middle class voters enjoy the three-four days holidays that they get for voting. Simple solutions then: One, ensure your name is on the voters’ list; two, ensure that you vote; three, lets have a strong enough movement to get ‘none-of-the-above’ choices included in the voters pad; four, vote conscientiously and not as an ad hoc choice at the spur of the moment.
Freedom to Choose Life Partner. India is a country where until recently we had the prevalence of Sati. A widow was expected to jump into the funeral pyre of her dead husband since it was considered that after the husband was dead, the wife had no right to continue living. And who was her husband? Did she choose him? No, for heaven’s sake, what are you talking about? Many of the Indian girls are still married when they are children (see pic below). The parents decide who she should get married to; of what religion and caste are the governing factors. It is the same with boys; he dare not marry anyone outside the ambit laid by the parents and the community. In many cases, should the boy and the girl decide to exercise choice, the future that awaits them is that of complete ostracising and also of death. With the increased expectancy of life, the couple is expected to spend the next five decades or more together but both of them do not exercise choice for fear of parents, relatives and khap-panchayats. In majority of the cases, the boy’s family either demands dowry directly or makes it clear that the girl will be happier if her parents provide something for her; eg, “Humein kuchh nahin chahiye, jo kuchh hai aap apni ladki ko de sakte hain.” (We don’t need anything; you are free to give anything to your daughter though)
Prevalence of child marriage (Pic courtesy: asianews.it)
Solution. Life is unique and life is precious. The happiness of our children lies in providing them the freedom to choose life partners. Dowry and other considerations of caste and community should be shunned. The only way to change the society is if we do it with our children and start with ourselves and our families.
Freedom of Expression. This is a very sensitive subject with us. From ostracism of MF Hussain to Mamta Bannerji getting after people with vengeance who were making cartoons of her, we are certainly losing patience and becoming more rigid in our approach. It is not just James Laine’s ‘Hindu King in Islamic India’ but, nowadays, increasingly large number of movies and books are found objectionable by communities and vested interests; many of these without either seeing the movie or reading the book. It is true that freedom of expression should be responsibly used; however, I am talking about more and more people in our society being pseudo loyalists and jingoists. We are gradually becoming a society where fear prevails and true expressions remain suppressed for ages.
Laine burning (Courtesy: patwardhan.com)
Solution. We should be proud of the pluralism of India. Even when foreign kings came to India and ruled over us, we didn’t require armies and senas to protect our beliefs and ideas. In the end, ideas conquer because of the strength of the ideas and not because of the authorities or senas protecting these. What we need is a society more tolerant of others’ ideas. As Winston Churchill said, “I do not agree with you but I shall defend to the hilt your right to say your thing.”
Right to Privacy. Lets face it: we are too many of us. There is no way we can let people by themselves; everything is public, everything is everywhere. In this, the role of the present day Indian media is to be abhorred. Imagine sending a microphone down to Prince having fallen into a 40 metres hole and asking him, “Kaisa lag raha hai tumhen?” (How do you feel being down there?). Similarly, telling us live what is happening every minute to the innards of Pramod Mahajan after having been shot by his brother, I would think it is invasion of privacy. Listening to people’s calls, e-mails, messages in the name of tightening security is also invasion of privacy. There is nowhere to go these days. Young boys and girls in love are frequently hassled by the police. All your sensitive information is public knowledge. India has emerged the capital of the world for white collar crimes such as stealth of banking data of people and credit card details. Similarly, the police feels that they can stop anyone anywhere and start harassing ordinary citizens in order to show their “supreme power”. Any number of promoters ring you up and sms you any number of times to advertise their products. You won’t find directions on the road as to how to reach the airport, hospital or railway station but you will find large hoardings telling you how far and where the next MacDonald is. Whether or not you want to participate in a religious festival, since these are largely celebrated on roads and public places you end up participating in these against your choice. You cannot dare to speak against the noise levels. We have simply lost privacy.
Loss of Privacy (courtesy: wearethebest.wordpress.com)
Solution. This will take a long time to come in India beset as we are with the problems of terrorism both from across the border and home grown. The law enforcing agencies feel that they have a right to pry into people’s private lives and people on their own feel helpless. Some of them even ask what’s the big deal about it? Possibly, we can start asserting individual’s right to privacy in awareness campaigns. The more people talk about it, the more will be the compulsion to do away with privacy. As far intrusions into privacy of individuals by communities are concerned, includind intruding by unwanted and illegal noise, we can start with ourselves, our children and our families and perhaps the movement will grow.
Freedoms We Can Do Without. Having given vent to some of the desirable freedoms that we should have as Indians and the ones that we are still far from having, let me now make a short list of freedoms that we have ascribed to ourselves but which encroach upon others’ rights and freedoms. We should restrict these so called ‘freedoms’:
The first one of these is the freedom to have sex with everyone and everywhere without consideration of age and circumstances. The instance of incest in our country is as high as 49 percent. Many very young lives have been scarred for life with our people’s inability to control sexual urges. Rapes are on the increase and Delhi has now earned the dubious distinction of being the ‘Rape Capital of the World’.
The second is freedom to use the roads every which way. The other day a foreigner asked me to describe traffic in India. I have written a lot on the subject in this very blog. But, in order to cut a long story short, here was my reply: In India you would do well to understand that on our roads we have all types of vehicles and non-vehicles at all times in all directions at all times. Can’t we individually and collectively bring some order into it?
The third is our uncontrollable urge to litter; the freedom that we feel our forefathers have won for us. The result is that our houses, colonies, roads, public places, anywhere and everywhere, look shabby, full of paan stains, with mounds or heaps of filth. Diseases and epidemics result from this unchecked pollution especially of all our water bodies. However, we don’t want to bring in even an iota of discipline in our civic lives.
Lastly, we can do away completely with the freedom to consider public moneys and properties as our own. From netas to common man, everyone is now part of the great Indian corruption scene; it is all to do with shortcuts to get ahead in life somehow. We Indians have really lost our soul. (Read ‘Indians – Bartering Character For Prosperity‘)
Fortunately for us having touched rock bottom there is no way to go but up. Lets work towards it.
Is the world an obstacle course to cross and reach God? Is the purpose of our life or existence only to be with God or finally reach Him? Why is it that God can be obtained by the abnegation or denial of all human feelings, desires and wants? In our scriptures and even in ordinary conversation our baser feelings are described as being “animalistic“. But, who made those animals? Who made us? We tend to feel that whenever we do or think something ‘good’, God is controlling us. Then who is controlling us when we do or think ‘evil’ things? Who decides what is ‘good’ or ‘evil’? Who gives us any knowledge or consciousness? Is it God or does knowledge and consciousness exist in the world like internet; a huge highway?
Lets first examine the concept of consciousness. Consciousness is not an absolute term. Indeed, I have already established that there is no Absolute Virtue in this world (Read ‘Absolute Virtue’) and all virtues, qualities, good or bad, and hence beliefs and knowledge are in relation to others. Consciousness too is defined as ‘the relationship between our mind and the rest of the world with which we interact’. Thus, even though consciousness is awareness, it is subjective. And how do we know about consciousness? It is, we are at pains to say, something intrinsic, something intuitive. Something like our perception of God; an idea that emerged from nowhere but we intuitively know it is the right idea.
Consciousness: a relationship between us and the world (pic courtesy: zazenlife.com)
This then brings us to ‘Intuition‘. Intuition is known as the opposite of reason. And what is reason? It is the ability that we have ascribed to ourselves to think logically or to make sense of the facts presented to us. In other words, being reasonable is the same as being rational. Intuition on the other hand is the ability to have or use knowledge without reasoning. The origin of the word is Latin ‘intueri’ which means ‘to look inside’. Lets say you weigh factors in your mind and then decide on a course of action, your selection is dependent upon reason. However, if without weighing the facts in mind you, some inner voice or gut feeling tells you what you should do, you do so intuitively. Many people have won great fortunes or warriors won great battles by following their intuitions rather than reasoning. Intuition is also called Guardian Angel. It is not clear at whose behest your inner voice or Guardian Angel speaks to you.
Intuition: seeing it with the inner eye (pic courtesy: mindpowermasters.blogspot.com)
Lets subject Intuition to scrutiny, reasoning or logic. Is it really the opposite of rational and hence irrational or unreasonable or illogical? Then, how is it that even consciousness is what is intuitively known to us? What about post-event analysis or reasoning? For example, if an intuition can save you from an accident, what is irrational or illogical about it? Is it that if with your current sensory and extra-sensory knowledge leads you to disaster, then only it is fruit of a rational thought. Else, it is to be explained with the phrase ‘nothing succeeds like success’ or with the derisive ‘the b____r is just lucky’. About a century ago, in 1921, Carl Jung defined intuition as ‘perception by the unconscious’. Jung said that a person in whom intuition was dominant, an ‘intuitive type’, acted not on the basis of rational judgment but on sheer intensity of perception.
Last year, I wrote an article ‘Being Nonsensical May Be Far Sighted’. In this I had argued that since we compare our knowledge with what has been in the past, we limit our future knowledge. Therefore, the world’s knowledge grows only incrementally. Anybody who takes a leap of knowledge far beyond our current or past thinking is called non-sensical since we are limited by our senses. I also wrote that we live in ‘The Virtual World’ since even seeing is not believing and also, things do exist in the cosmos that are beyond our senses and hence, simply because we can’t see, touch, hear, taste and smell them are no grounds for their non-existence.
Okay, lets see what I have established so far in this article; it is that all consciousness, awareness, knowledge, rational, reasoning and logical approach is after all an attempt to compare the current knowledge with other current or previous knowledge so as to make sense of the facts presented to us. However, when we ‘intuitively‘ arrive at a conclusion, even if it turns out to be more right for us than reasoning, it is still the product of an irrational thinking or simply a ‘perception born out of unconscious’.
Intuition, therefore, may be defined as understanding or knowing without conscious recourse to thought, observation or reason. There is a great deal of mysticism or supernaturalism associated with it since we appear to be responding to cues, hints or suggestions given to us by our gut-feeling or without any previousknowledge. However, what if knowledge or awareness or consciousness about this previous knowledge is beyond the ambit of our senses? It would still then be historical data stored in the depths of our mind or hanging in the air, which comes to surface only when we are faced with a particular situation.
Sounds incredible? Well, it is not really so. We already have something called reflex action that makes a child instinctively take its hand away from fire or sharp object without having experienced it before during its short life of say three months. It is because generations of knowledge are imprinted in its nervous system through its parents, grandparents etc. Similarly, could this be that an intuition is nothing but generational knowledge imprinted in our system somewhere and it is designed to surface when it does? In that case, it is still comparing current knowledge with previous knowledge or simply experience. Have we experienced such a thing before? If yes, then how does the current experience compare with the previous one?
Therefore, experience is considered the very essence of consciousness; it is a subjective feeling, something intrinsic with each one of us. We are therefore conscious that there cannot be someone or something devoid of consciousness and still be called human.
Lets return to the original question: ‘who, therefore, gives us the consciousness, knowledge, awareness, and even intuition and reflex action, gut feeling or inner voice?’ Is there something beyond consciousness that drives us? Whenever we subject anything to our senses, we invariably compare it with a template we have in our mind of an earlier experience or history either directly through our memory or through intuition. Hence, we can never be innocent or unbiased since consciousness, knowledge, awareness, intuition etc all are relative and subjective. There is no absolute objectivity.
At this stage, let’s have a look at what exactly is Bias? How many times have you come across the expression, “Saala shakal se hi badmaash lagta hai” (He simply looks like a rogue). Lets give it a thought as to what exactly is contained in this statement? It is a template in our mind about what we think a rogue should look like. Have we got enough personal experience of rogues to form this template; or is it some one’s historic data, or description that has got us swayed?
Bias is, therefore, the tendency to have a one-sided perspective in comparison to other equally valid choices. It is a selfish point of view; something similar to a lover’s devotion towards his beloved. It is more emotional than reasoning. The fact is (this is my bias speaking) that every one of us has a philosophy of convenience and we invariably look for reasons to prove this theory or philosophy right.
A very good way to explain Bias by nirmukta.com
A bias can be cognitive if you take decisions based on cognitive skills rather than through evidence. We take shortcuts to arrive at decisions based on emotional and social factors rather than by seeking the proof of a particular statement, event or person.The term cognition comes from the Latin verb congnosco (con ‘with’ + gnōscō ‘know’), which itself is derived from the Ancient Greek verb gnόsko “γνώσκω” meaning ‘learning’. Hence cognition means: ‘to conceptualize’ or ‘to recognize’. If our mind, through emotional or social process of cognition has decided, even before hearing the evidence, that a certain person is bad influence; we cut out all reasoning and arguments against our decision. That’s Bias without our even stopping to think and analyse. Many a times we are not even aware that our mind does this to us; since, believe it or not, it is auto-programmed to do it without any inputs or help from us.
Take a mother’s love for her child; she gets immune to hearing anything that spoils her impression that she has the most beautiful child on earth.
With the kind of pre-knowledge that we are programmed to have, even before we are born, it is not possible for us to be ever unbiased or innocent. Every thought with us, whether conscious or intuitive, is based on historical knowledge (it may be immediate history or of thousands of years back) and hence, when we tell someone to clear his or her mind of all ideas and then make a decision, we are as far from the truth as we can get. Bias, with each one of us, is present in some manner or the other, in some degree or the other. All thinking is Bias in its larger sense. None of us can ever be totally innocent since all knowledge actually corrupts the mind and keeps the mind from reacting to a new situation or idea based on its own merit and not on historic data in our mind or elsewhere. Also, one can never be completely innovative; for, if one did, it would simply be non-sensical or beyond the scope of senses.
How then can we ever regain innocence? Indeed, this sentence unknowingly suggests that we had innocence at one time and lost it by our own actions, thoughts or inactions. Actually that itself is a myth. Anyway, lets at least examine the chances of our ever becoming unbiased or innocent.
The holy book that I look for guidance is the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Guruji has described something called haume (Self or Ego) that gets into every thinking of ours and we are never free from it. According to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, if we can be rid of haume, we would be close to param aatma (Supreme Soul) or God.
Sounds very simple, is it? Get rid of haume and we are next to God. To help us examine it, we have to decide whether we have the Free Will to think or do things independently or some force somewhere guides us all the time?
Historically, there has been considerable debate with scholars and spiritual leaders about whether we have Free Will or not. It is a somewhat divided house. Is a person, of sane mind (whatever that means), to be morally responsible for his/her thoughts or actions or is what one does or doesn’t do already determined by a higher force; something that the Sri Guru Granth Sahib calls Kirt (writ already for you for a particular life or determined in advance)? Already, in most courts, a person’s guilt is held to be minimised or even held as zero if he or she was not sane or in a position to decide by himself or herself; for example, a small child suffocating her father through sheer ignorance will be held in the courts as innocent because a child is not expected to know what he/she is doing; and certainly not have mens rea (a guilty mind or an intention to commit wrong). However, if we carry forward this argument further, and come to the collective conclusion that no man or woman can ever be totally free to take a decision or commit a deed, what does it make of our collective reasoning to punish such a man? “For heavens sake, a forty-year old can’t be as innocent as a child”?
Lets study the concept of Free Will a little more. Free Will is our ability to make choices free from all constraints. What stands in the way of Free Will is metaphysical determinism and what favours is the concept of metaphysical libertarianism.
Determinism broadly means that some form of determinism or pre-set conduct or behaviour is true, and hence there is nothing like Free Will. This takes four major forms: Casual, Logical, Theological and Biological. Lets just take one of these to understand what it is. Logical determinism is the notion that all propositions, whether about the past, present or future, are either true or false. The problem of free will, in this context, is the problem of how choices can be free, given that what one does in the future is already determined as true or false in the present.
In Hinduism, the various schools of thought do not agree with one another on whether we have Free Will or not. Here is Swami Vivekananda about it; one of Hinduism’s thinking and modern saints: “Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. … To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here.”
I found this in Wikipedia: However, the preceding quote has often been misinterpreted as Vivekananda implying that everything is predetermined. What Vivekananda actually meant by lack of free will was that the will was not “free” because it was heavily influenced by the law of cause and effect—”The will is not free, it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect, but there is something behind the will which is free.” Vivekananda never said things were absolutely determined and placed emphasis on the power of conscious choice to alter one’s past karma: “It is the coward and the fool who says this is his fate. But it is the strong man who stands up and says I will make my own fate.”
So, finally, we have come to the end of this long discourse; which is that we can never be unbiased or innocent. However, there is a Consciousness far beyond the western or common notion of consciousness as given above. If, in some way, we are able to arouse this consciousness, we can get over what is pre-determined for us.
Until then, we can be more unbiased or innocent than someone; and at the same time be less unbiased or innocent than someone else. Also, we cannot be absolutely unbiased or innocent. As Eugene O’ Neill wrote, “No man’s guilt is not yours; nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart.”
Sri Guru Granth Sahib, which I believe, in large parts, is based on the Vedas (the holiest of Hindu scriptures), has this to say about it: “Man jeete jag jeet” (Conquer the mind to conquer the universe). Easier said than done, since, you can’t free the Mind of Bias (borne out of haume) even for a second.
I believe that it is not just ‘we are what we think‘; but, also, the universe is what we think it is. Surprised? Hogwash? We often refer to it as ‘magic’ or ‘supernatural’ what we cannot understand. Those who can let their imagination take wing can ‘see’ and ‘hear’ things better than others; something that we have called ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). I have proved in this section of my blog (The Virtual World) that even seeing is not believing; even seeing is still our imagination. So, in order to carry forward this argument, what if the saints and spiritual leaders before us had discovered that senses can get us only so far and no more; and that going beyond the senses may be the way to go. That is, the expression “are you out of your senses” may not describe you as an idiot but as a great intellectual?
Don’t get it? Well let me explain: Senses kind of ‘limit’ the range of our imagination or even ‘knowledge’, if you care to call it that. There is only an ‘incremental’ growth in the knowledge of the world with passage of time; even when there are such earth-shaking discoveries as atomic power and speed of electrons. So, because of this limitation, we are not able to acquire such knowledge about which we have no knowledge whatsoever. In other words, you can only discover such lands and treasures that you have at least imagined them to be there. It doesn’t mean all treasures and ‘lands’ (I am using the word ‘lands‘ in a metaphoric sense) have been found; least of all imagined. Therefore, in our life time, we shall never imagine those things, ‘treasures’, ‘lands’ that people will ‘imagine’, say, a thousand years from now.
But, what, if we were to suddenly discover a machine or tool by virtue of which we could go beyond our current imagination and discover things or treasures of future generations? Impossible? Well, I am not too sure. Leonardo da Vinci did it; Lord Rama did it; Arjuna did it.
Probably, many of us do it but these are termed as – you guessed it – non-sensical; because, our collective sense has not (yet) taken us there.
Seen in this manner, I am convinced that there is no difference between Science, Spirituality and Mythology: the one that takes the bigger leap calls the other backward and idiotic. And who is to know which is the bigger leap? Well, our ‘current’ knowledge.
What happens to some of us or at least one of us who has travelled to the world beyond the year 2500 AD and lives amongst us? We don’t believe but he believes because he has seen it, heard it, felt it, smelled it and spoken to it.
Let me end on a lighter note (that I frequently do) to sum up our understanding of someone else’s understanding:
A man was going through the jungles of Africa and was held prisoner by cannibals. As they prepared to boil him alive and have him, he thought of scaring them with ‘Magic’. He pulled out a cigarette lighter (during those days the lighters were the flint-stone type) and jerked the wheel to produce a flame and turned to the cannibals and said, “See Magic”. Upon this the cannibal chief responded, “It indeed is. This is the first time I have seen a lighter that worked on first go”!
We, others, and universe are what we think we, others, and universe are.
We have just concluded the Navratri “celebrations”. I am convinced that people believe that gods must be deaf or sleeping and they need to be woken up with cacophonic music, ear splitting noise of conches and other religious instruments and blaring loudspeakers. It is as if when we did not have technology of woofers and mixers we had no means to reach God.
Earlier we had the Ayodhaya verdict. I sometimes keep comparing our times with times many centuries ago. As compared to then, we have better technical means available now to debate issues. However, I keep wondering whether the quality and impact of debates are any better than, say, during Peloponnesian wars. Is it the destiny of human race to periodically indulge in extreme foolishness and lunacy that do nothing for general upliftment of people? If we believe in God, all land, assets, and people belong to Him. Can some judges actually adjudicate now whether a miniscule portion of that land also belongs to Him or not? God, we are your children but many a times we act as if we are more powerful than even you. I’d rather join the ranks of pagans and atheists than to associate with such religions as divide God’s people.
Let us take the simplistic version of origin of Religion; no, not any particular religion; but just Religion. Many centuries ago, Man realised that there was great deal to be gained by staying together: mutual support, defence against animals and vagaries of Nature, and optimal utilisation of resources, to name a few. However, community living brought with it a set of problems if all the members were to follow their own rules, ethics, and standards. Thus, Religion was born: a set of principles for good community living. There were, however, many problems, dangers, disasters etc that Man was not able to protect himself against even when living in a community and hence the concept of God or gods originated. The philosophy was that anything beyond Man, both individually and collectively, was in the realm of an omnipotent and omnipresent God and all that we had to do was to have faith in Him and He would be our saviour. Indeed, the ancient images of gods included Snake, Sun, Tiger, Lion and all the things Man was afraid of. Thus, when faced with situations beyond his control, Man turned to God for succour. This pleading for succour could be done in many ways. But, Man realised that the best was to do it together in community. Therefore, somewhere along the line Religion got associated with the concept of praying to God. It is not clear whether Religion, being a set of principles for community living, came first or formal praying to God in community came first. However, principles like ‘Thou shalt not steal’ or ‘Thou shalt not covet your neighbour’s wife’ together with Prayers or Petitions to God became essential parts of most religions.
The concepts of Religion and God were refined over the ages and in keeping with the times. However, despite the refinements, because different people interpreted these differently, problems arose. One basic reason why these were interpreted differently was (and is) that logic and reason are more suited for individuals (eg, Lord Krishna reasoning it out with Arjuna before the battle of Mahabharta). More often than not, in collections of people called crowds, mob mentality takes over. So, whereas people individually are adequately reasonable, in crowds they behave at the level of common minimum reasoning laced with jingoism and parochialism. The reason for this is not difficult to fathom; it is an unquestioned faith in tenets of community honed over ages. Armies are built around such philosophies of convenience; ‘Good’ lies with us and ‘Evil’ is what they are. The concepts of jus ad bellum (right to wage war) and jus in bello (just war) also have their origin in this.
Oliver Cromwell, on 5th Aug 1650 wrote thus to the synod of church of England: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken”. But, like Rundi K Bakshi, played by Peter Sellers in the movie ‘The Party’, said, “In India we don’t think; we are sure”; there is no question of Indians, belonging to any community, thinking it possible that they may be mistaken. Gods, they feel, have bestowed upon them the burden of being ‘firm in faith’. Translated it means that there is religious merit in locking up good sense and following jus ad bellum unquestionably.
Whenever our collective understanding of tenets that should be followed in a community, that is Religion, became much haywire, we had leaders emerging who brought us back to good sense. These leaders reminded us primarily not to try to prove with mass reasoning that we knew to be intrinsically wrong. These reformists either started a new Religion or their teachings became new Religion. In some cases, like in the case of Hinduism, the religion remained the same but reforms made it better and more suited to emerging times.
As I said earlier, in our collective wisdom, the teachings of these leaders too became subject to interpretations. So when Mohammed said and practised that a Muslim should marry many women, he was talking about succour that such marriages provided to those women who had lost their protectors in war in early seventh century. But, over time, this was interpreted as a right of a Muslim to have many wives. In other religions too such interpretations to suit philosophy of the day became rampant. Our faith demanded that we did not think of these leaders as mere mortals; so we regarded them as gods or the God or prophets of God. Since Religion was close to armies in organisation, blind or unquestioned faith in tenets of the religion and gods was considered a virtue. Hence, people fighting in the name of God or Religion was sanctified in almost all religions. This included even Buddhism.
I think a time has come when we do not require organised Religion at all. We have come way off from the ancient times when Religion provided us with collective defence against Evil and fearful enemies including animals and demons. During those times and many centuries later Religion united us against such forces. But now, Religion has become the biggest divider of people. We should now move from community religion to individual religion. Indeed, Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, and many other reformers, during the major reformative movement of Hindu religion, described Kalyug as a positive era; in that whilst earlier we were praying to God in community, we could, in Kalyug, do it individually. In other words we can be one to one with God. We can evoke the Good within us and kill the Evil within us rather than seeking to destroy or look down upon the enemies or perceived enemies of our Religion. Guru Nanak borrowed a phrase from the Vedas to delineate the entire essence of what should be our Religion: “Man Jeete Jag Jeet” (Conquer your own Mind to conquer the Universe).
God is within us and all around us. We neither have to go to mountains, nor churches, mosques and temples to worship Him or Her. Collective worshipping of God or gods helps no one except to divide communities (who are also the same God’s creations and hence related to us) and only helps the politicians or so called custodians of faith who thrive from such polarisation.
I was very small when I went with my parents to see Hindi (we had not bastardised by calling it Bollywood) movie ‘Dhool Ka Phool’ (A Flower in Dust). But, still the words ring in my mind:
‘Tu Hindu banega na musalmaan banega,
Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega.’
(My child, you will neither grow up to be a Hindu nor a Muslim; you are a human child and you will grow to become human)
I, for one, shall pray in a Mandir or fight for the right to pray in a Mandir if…..well, if a court can prove to me Ram is to be found or can be prayed to only in a Mandir. Similarly, I shall pray for Allah in a mosque if He can’t be found elsewhere.
When they objected to Guru Nanak for sleeping with his feet towards the mosque because it was the abode of God, he simply asked them to move his feet in a direction where there was no God.
Playwright Eugene O’ Neil once said, “Remember that every man is a variation of yourself; no man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart”. This relativity of human kind actually extends to the entire cosmic universe. The existence and even location of millions of objects in space is dependent upon other objects. If it were not for the gravity, many objects would lose their weight and position. For example, we cannot see Dark-Matteror perceive its existence, but because of gravity exerted by it, we know it is there! Imagine that Mass or Matter beyond electromagnetic waves is perceived by inference alone! Einstein’s Theory of Relativity further brings the relationship between Mass and Energy. According to him both are the same; that is, both are conserved separately but atomic particles (Matter) can be converted to a form of Energy (Non-Matter) such as Light, Heat or Kinetic.That brings us to the Law of Conservation of Energy that we read about in the school. According to this the total amount of energy remains constant over time. In simple terms it means that when energy is consumed or dissipated it appears in an equivalent and some other form or forms. In other words Energy cannot be created or destroyed! Since there is relationship between Mass and Energy it also, by extension, means that the Total Energy or Total Mass in the universe is constant over Time as observed by us.
In my previous article ‘The Virtual World’, I had argued that how we see objects is dependent upon a form of Energy called Light emitted by such objects and reaching us over Time. If this Energy including Infrared and Ultraviolet were not to reach us, as far as we are concerned, such a thing does not exist. But, nay, Dark Matter does exist as otherwise who or what would be applying such gravitational force.
Suffice it to say that only constant is Total Mass or Total Energy and everything else is relative. Every consumption of energy by us is reappearing somewhere and someone is being affected by it. So far there is no difference between Science and Spirituality. We believe in the same thing. Where we differ is what we perceive by inference. Spirituality feels that there is a Creator since Scientists acknowledge the fact that Energy or Mass cannot be created but merely converted. Then who created it? For example, Guru Nanak as brought out in the very first lines of Guru Granth Sahib made an effort to explain God, the Creator (Ek Ongkaar). God, he said is Satnaam (Truth) and is “Aad Sach, Jugaad Sach, Hai Bhee Sach, Naanak Hosee Bhee Sach”. (True in the Beginning, True in the Primeval Age, True now, says Nanak, He shall certainly be True in the future). This means that God the Creator is beyond His Creation and when the Creation dies (or actually reappears as something else), He will not die.
Bhagwat Gita says exactly the same thing. Ahamaatmaa gudaakesha sarvabhootaashayasthitah; Ahamaadishcha madhyam cha bhootaanaamanta eva cha (‘I am, O Gudakesh, the Self that dwells within all beings, as also their primeval beginning, middle, and end’). Both, Guru Granth Sahib and Bhagwat Gita also tell Man not to worry about the past or the future because it was and is beyond him. Also understanding of the cosmic world is beyond man: Na tu maam shakyase drashtum anenaiva swachakshushaa; Divyam dadaami te chakshuh pashya me yogamaishwaram (But thou art not able to behold Me with these, thine own eyes; I give thee the divine eye; behold My lordly Yoga). It is only then that Arjuna saw various manifestations of Lord Krishna as the Creator.
Anyway, a deeper study of Science and Spirituality bring out that there is hardly any difference in what both believe in; except that Science feels that what is now unknown or un-understood by Man will be discovered by him later in a scientific way whereas Spirituality feels that God reveals to Man what He chooses to reveal.
As brought out on page 606 of Sri Guru Granth Sahib: Aape mar jivaida piyara sah laide sabh lavaaia (The Beloved Himself kills and revives; all draw the breath of life, given by Him). Aape taanh dibaan hai piyara aape kaare laaia (The Beloved Himself is power and presence; He Himself engages us in our work). Jiu aap challaye tiu chalaye piyara jiu har prabh mere bhaayiya (As the Beloved makes me walk, I walk, as it pleases my Lord God). Aape janti jant hai piyara jan Nanak vajeh vajaaiya (The Beloved Himself is the musician, and the musical instrument; servant Nanak vibrates His vibration).
This is no different from Bhagwat Gita, eg, Chapter VII: Beejam maam sarvabhootaanaam viddhi paartha sanaatanam; Buddhir buddhimataamasmi tejastejaswinaamaham (Know Me, O Arjuna, as the eternal seed of all beings; I am the intelligence of the intelligent; the splendour of the splendid objects am I). Balam balavataam asmi kaamaraagavivarjitam; Dharmaaviruddho bhooteshu kaamo’smi bharatarshabha (Of the strong, I am the strength devoid of desire and attachment, and in (all) beings, I am the desire unopposed to Dharma, O Arjuna!) Ye chaiva saattvikaa bhaavaa raajasaastaamasaashcha ye; Matta eveti taanviddhi na twaham teshu te mayi (Whatever being (and objects) that are pure, active and inert, know that they proceed from Me. They are in Me, yet I am not in them). Tribhirgunamayair bhaavairebhih sarvamidam jagat; Mohitam naabhijaanaati maamebhyah paramavyayam (Deluded by these Natures (states or things) composed of the three qualities of Nature, all this world does not know Me as distinct from them and immutable).
At this stage, I am not going to get into any discussion about the Good and the Bad or Evil. However, it is important to take stock of what we have established so far
· One, we have established that Energy or Mass cannot be created or destroyed. These can only be converted to other forms.
· Two, we have established that there is a (so far unknown) Force (as believed by Science) or Creator who has created this fixed quantity of Energy or Mass and this Force or Creator is beyond the laws of Nature.
· Three, that because of our inability to produce new Energy or Mass (as opposed to converting what this Force or Creator has made available to us); every action of ours is relative to such reconverted forms.
Some simple examples of the last point above are that we, human beings, do not create water; we either melt ice to get water through the use of Heat Energy or convert sea water into water by excluding salt by evaporation. If the world balance of Total Mass or Total Energy is to be maintained, then every action of ours has an (or several) equal reaction(s) over Time; some of these are immediately noticeable by us whereas some take more time; some may be at the same place, whereas some may be at another distant place. An example of the latter is the concern of the developed world about global warming and environmental issues. They themselves used Energy during their industrialisation years causing unfettered depredation of the environment; but, they want China and India to put cap on emissions during their rapid industrialisation requiring unprecedented use of Energy. These are clearly double standards.
Here is what Jeremy Seabrook wrote in Outlook magazine (16 June 2008 issue) in an Opinion titled ‘The Paupers Arrive..Late for the Banquet’:
“In a world of prodigality and poverty, of excess and exiguity, and a system that violates the elements that sustain life, if India and China increased their wealth twenty- or fifty-fold, what would be the effect on the resource base of the earth? It is yet another unfortunate historical accident that India and China should be poised on the brink of the age of heroic consumption at the very time when the western powers are coming to the sober realisation that this era may be drawing to its close. The insistence that India and China forbear to pollute in the reckless fashion of the West at the time of its early industrialism is an indirect recognition of the impossible task they are faced with. Although the economy is the only area of experience in which the knowing and cynical of the world still believe miracles to occur, it would require unprecedented supernatural intervention to satisfy unbound human desires, which hover like an epic plague of locusts over the harvest-fields of the earth.”
Strong words these. However, these are in recognition of both our findings; that Energy consumed would produce some reaction somewhere else over Time; and two, that we have only a fixed amount of Energy. It is for this reason that I steered clear from any discussion on Good or Bad because who is going to be the judge? As seen by George Bush global food crisis of 2008 was a direct result of enhanced consumption by India and China! One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
This argument can be extended to arrive at the realisation that there is nothing like Absolute Virtue or Absolute Evil. In God’s Universe there are no Absolutes; everything and every action is in relation to another thing or action. It is because of the Relativity of Time. The only Absolute is the Creator Himself; He is Timeless.
What if ideas, concepts, words and sounds too have an Absolute Total Quantity over Time? In that case we would only be regenerating these (in the same manner as other forms of Energy)! When I was small I read of a machine that would produce all possible combinations of letters and digits and punctuation marks (say in just one language). It would thus produce all the literature of the world that has already been produced and all that that is going to be produced. There is only one problem though; the time taken for all the combinations would be eternal even with super computers. After that another eternity would be required to sift the meaningful from the gibberish and who knows all the meaningful from all the gibberish? In relative terms (the only terms known to us) one man’s gibberish is another man’s intellect!
Now we turn to the concept of Free Will. All religions believe, with some variations, that Man does not have Free Will. If you followed my arguments so far, we can never have free will since we have a position in this universe which is relative to others. Every action of ours is in relation to others. Here is what Swami Vivekanada had to say about the concept of Free Will,” Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. … To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here.”
In Guru Granth Sahib it is said thus: Hukme karam kamavne payiye kirat firao (According to the Lord’s Command, people perform their actions; they wander around, driven by the karma of their past actions). And what exactly is this kirat? It is what God ordained for you. In Bhagwat Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna not to be carried away by the fact that those arrayed across from him were all related to him and would die by his actions; he said in any case the whole universe is related to you and in any case they are going to die. But what about your Karma?
This brings us to the most interesting concept of Life and Death; we know that these are not Absolute. Hence, for something to be born (not Created but born in the sense of the word ‘Born’ as we understand), something has to die. This also explains the doubt by a number of meta-physicists who feel that if Creator or God already knows that his creation (say, a man) would be wicked when he grows up, why did he create him? It also explains why there are floods and earthquakes.
In the great Hindi movie Waqt (Time), there was a beautiful song whose lyrics were:
Aage bhi jaane na tu, peechhe bhi jaane na tu jo bhi hai, bas yahi ek pal hai
Anjaane saayo ka raaho mein dera hai Andekhi baahon ne ham sabko ghera hai Ye pal ujaala hai baaqi andhera hai Ye pal gawaana na ye pal hi tera hai Jeene waale soch le yahi waqt hai kar le puri aarzoo.
(What is beyond you don’t know; what is past you have no knowledge
What is really there is only the present moment.
In this world dwell the shadows strange,
We are all embraced by unseen arms.
The present moment is the only light, rest is dark for us.
So do not lose this moment, only the moment belongs to you.
O living being, think, only this Time is your own
To fulfill all your desires)
There is only one flaw in the lyrics of the song; that is, the suggestion to “soch le” (think). It is because the moment you think, you are transported to another “pal” (moment), which is either in the past or yet to come.
A few years ago, when I went to Spain, I saw the bull-fighting that I had heard so much about. All the impressions that I carried of bravado were shattered when I learn that it was not so much fighting but it was actually more like a play or drama with three Acts called the tercios (thirds), the start of each one announced by a trumpet. The first stage is tercio de varas (the lancing thirds) when the picadors soften the hump of the bull with lances. In the next stage, the tercio de banderillas (the third of flags), the three banderilleros each attempt to plant two banderillas, sharp barbed sticks into the bull’s shoulders. These anger and invigorate the bull. In the final stage, the tercio de muerte (the third of death), the matador re-enters the ring alone with a small red cape, or muleta, and a sword so as to finally kill the bull by piercing his heart by a sword through the already softened hump, what is termed as estocada. Accidents do take place in all the three acts. However, in this play or ritual or drama the bull has no choice but to die.
I was reminded of the Hindi movie ‘Anand’s famous speech by Rajesh Khanna, “Babu moshaye yeh zindagi ek rang manch hai; aur hum sab usme kaam karne wali kathputliyan. In kathputliyon ki dore upar wale ke haath mein hai. Kab, kaise, kahan, kis kis ko uthna hai yeh koi nahin jaanta” (Dear Sir, our Life is a play-stage and we are all puppets participating in this play. The strings of the puppets are in the hands of the Almighty. When, how and where he would make anyone disappear (die) no one knows”.
Many have misinterpreted the last words of Christ on the cross, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’ to indicate the wickedness of the Romans. Actually, Christ has said these for the entire mankind. He knew that Man has no way of knowing what he is doing because only God has that knowledge. Talking about Christ, He also gave us an example of our ignorance in believing in Absolute Virtue when he saved Mary Magdalene from being stoned for being a sinner. He said the first stone would be cast by the one who had not sinned. No such person existed. No such person exists even today.
Hence, if there is nothing like Absolute Virtue and we do not exercise free-will to do anything, we can only strive to do Good in what we believe to be Good. We can neither be judgmental of our own deeds nor of those of others. Here is an excerpt from the song, from the movie ‘Do Aankhein Barha Haath’:
“Ae maalik tere bande hum aise ho humare karam nekee par chale, aur badee se taley, takey huste huey nikley dum
Bada kamjor hain aadmi, abhi laakhon hain is mein kamee par tu jo khadaa, hai dayalu bada, teri kirpa se dharti thami diya tune humey jab janam too hee zelegaa hum sab ke ghum
jab julmon ka ho saamnaa, tab tu hi humey thaamnaa voh burai karey, hum bhalai bharey, nahi badley ki ho kaamnaa badh uthey pyaar ka har kadam aur mitey bair ka ye bharam’
(O God, we are your servants,
Please make our karmas such
That we take the path of Good and be afraid to do the Evil
So that finally we return to you in joy.
Man is very frail,
As of now he has many shortcomings,
But you are all merciful,
And this Earth is in its place because of you.
Now that you gave us birth,
You will bear all cruelties done on us.
When we face cruelties,
Please keep us in your care.
But, when others do Evil and we do the Good,
We should never have a desire to seek revenge.
Let our every step be that of Love,
And we should shun all animosity.
I think that the realisation that there is no Absolute Virtue is the beginning of our knowledge about our Absolute Ignorance!
The entire ‘Srishti’ (Creation) – any Swami (man of God) would tell you – is ‘Maya’ (mirage); the only Reality is God. I heard this in my childhood and I heard it many times later. I heard it again recently and it is only now that I am beginning to realize that there is a great deal of truth in it. Reality is what one believes to be real. That’s why a person’s Reality is different from another person’s Reality, or as the English say, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” For heavens’ sake, it is the same object that we are talking about. How can it appear to be so diagonally opposite to different people?
Let us look at the concept of Reality; anything is real only if it exists in two variables known to us, that is, in Time and in Space. Let us tackle the Space factor first since it is easier to understand. How do we know a thing exists in Space? Simple, by feeling it with any of our five senses. Out of these five senses, for the sake of reasoning, we shall take the sense of Seeing. It is often said that seeing is believing. It is because there is no doubt about the existence of a thing after we have seen it with our own eyes. But now imagine that we enter a room in which this thing exists. It is pitch dark and we don’t know whether this thing exists unless we can make it out with other senses, that is touching, hearing, tasting and smelling. What if the thing is odourless, noiseless, tasteless and occupies no form? Difficult to imagine? Alright, let us just say that it has odour, noise, taste and form well below or well above the range of our senses; does it still exist? The answer is that we do not know. Hence, when we say that we don’t know, it does not mean that a thing does not exist. It is simply that it is beyond the range of our senses, which are our only way to establish if a thing exists. Therefore, as far as we are concerned, the existence of anything in Space is dependent upon our ability to see, touch, smell, hear or taste it.
All these are dependent upon the Rules that we ourselves make or discover. For example, many a times, we think of a person as extremely bright and intelligent when we see her and later find the same person extremely stupid when we hear her. Why? Simple – because Light travels much faster than Sound!
Let us pause to think of how do we see this person or any other person or thing? It is because of the Light emitted or reflected by that person or thing reaching us. And, Light travels at the, well, Speed of Light, which is very very fast indeed. Hence, we see the person or thing instantaneously. But, what if the person or thing is very far away, say, Light Years away? Well, in that case, by the time Light from that thing reaches us and supposing that thing is moving, we only imagine to see it where we see it, whereas in those Light Years, the thing may have actually moved elsewhere.
Let me explain this with an example. Let us say that a new star is born in the sky (it actually happens often), emitting, for the sake of hypothesis, distinctive light, say, green. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that you could travel faster than the Speed of Light and take a Space Odyssey towards this new emerging star and see it and return to earth. Now, let’s say, in the intervening time you have grand children and it is then, one day, when your grand children are playing in the courtyard that they see this new star in the sky (because of the light from that star having reached them after those many Light Years) and they run excitedly to you and shriek, “Grandma, come out and see there is a new Green Star in the sky.” And you, without stopping cutting the vegetables in the kitchen reply, “Oh, now you see, is it? I saw it fifty years back!”
So, you saw an event ahead in time in comparison to others, simply because you could travel faster than the speed of light! The distinction between what you always thought as Real World and Virtual World gets blurred! We refuse to believe it when the sages of yore used to call our world as Maya (the Myth). These worthy persons could travel (in body or estrella) at whatever speed they chose and actually (in our Reality) appeared sometimes at what appeared to be two or three different places at the same time!
So far, in our physical world, nothing can travel faster than the speed of Light and hence we tend to imagine that there is no other world. But think again; is it really true? Actually, something can travel faster than Light! Think about it; yes, our Dreams can actually travel much faster than any physical phenomenon known to us. If we do not get scared to, we can go Beyond the Rainbow and see another world and return to tell the story to others who would eventually see it many years later:
“Aa chal ke tujhe main le ke chaloon,
Ik aise gagan ke tale,
Jahan gham bhi na ho, aansoo bhi na ho,
Bus pyaar hi pyaar pale.
Jahan dur nazar daudayen, aazaad gagan laharaye,
Jahan rang birange panchhi, aasha ka sandesha layen.
Sapno mein pali, hansti ho kali,
Jahan sham suhani dhale,
Jahan gham bhi na ho, aansoo bhi na ho…”
This is an old Hindi song from the movie ‘Door Gagan Ki Chhayon Mein’ (Under the Far Skies), which is translated thus:
“Come let me lead you into that world,
Where there’d be no sorrow, no tears, but only Love.
Where as far as eyes can see,
You’d experience the unhindered sky,
Where birds of all colours,
Would bring the message of Hope.
In this dream world, Joy would blossom with sunrise,
And evenings’d lead to a sanguine sunset”.
Possible? I am sure we can make it possible. All we have to do is exactly what the Man from La Mancha, Don Quixote, did:
“To dream, the Impossible Dream
To touch the untouchable glory,
To reach the unreachable star…”
But, the doubts arise; don’t they always? “What if we all live in the virtual world? If we are always looking for ‘Tare Zameen Par’, who is to take care of Life’s real problems? What about electricity and water complaints, for example? The leaking faucet won’t be repaired simply by dreaming; the monthly bills have actually to be paid; children actually have to be dressed to go to school and the maid has to be actually trained over and over again”.
My answer is that there is time and place for everything! You dream when you can and you live when you have to. And if you can live and dream at the same time? Well, then, ladies and gentlemen, you are blessed indeed.
