Spirituality unbound

My mother, who handles the spirituality department for the entire house, recently made mandatory the viewing of the religious discourses on TV at various channels. It is not exactly mandatory but since the home minister’s order and advice are given in the same breath, none of us change the channels during the morning discourses. Though my early morning waking up is as rare as the sighting of ice man yeti, I distinctly remember one such occasion. My twelve hour sleepathon during the day forced me to wake up early. Shifting from one religious channel to another, I saw one in which a boy barely twelve or fourteen was giving discourse to a crowd whose average age was about forty five plus. I stopped the surfing and listened to him for about ten or fifteen minutes. The boy was calm and serene but despite all things, something natural gave away his childlike nervousness. Also his interpretation of Geeta was very verbose. But what I fail to understand was the response of the masses that clapped and swayed slightly from side to side. Switch to any channel and you will see people listening with ardent fervor to what is being said on the dais, whether by a god man, a mahatma, a child or a foreigner or probably anyone or anything.

Spirituality is on sale, whether you like it or not. I can empathize or sympathize with you if you agree. The basic thing seems to do our own bit towards god by attending all these religious discourses. People come with the idea of celebrating god and their own faith and probably any less involvement would mean doubting their own faith. But as I said “something natural in the boy gave away his childlike nervousness”, I seriously doubt the
meaning of all this. Is it a search for spiritual enlightenment or just a short cut of lightening our heavy heart that we are doing the mandatory as above average believers?
Well if it’s about faith, Hindu religion was always based on the theory of karma. Why don’t all these people do something to bring about a change in the life of destitute around us? Just like a state that will put the statues of great men with much funfair and speech but refuse to follow what the great man said during his life. All this because it comes easier, since great men like Gandhiji cannot be followed it is important that be praised and set aside. Much of the same is being singled out for god and religion. Since our righteous religion becomes increasingly difficult to follow requiring a constant input from our side, the easier part is what we see around all the time. Hear the discourses; fight for religion, raise voice for or against religion, criticizing a Muslim makes me a better Hindu and going to a mosque makes me a lesser Hindu. These are simply easy escapes, quick fix solutions.

Well coming on to the second part – if it’s all about enlightenment and soul searching. I remember a simple story very apt for this discussion. Once a few river fishes came together to discuss what an ocean is like and what’s it like to swim in an ocean. None of them had ever been to an ocean. They started arranging stones to give a physical shape to the cumulative thought. One said that the ocean is very big, another said it moves very fast as if it has four legs. The fishes arranged the stones accordingly. One said that the ocean is very dangerous – none of his friends that went to the ocean have ever returned so they gave the ocean two dangerous attacking teeth. Similar discussions carried on. Finally the picture that emerged from the stones depicted a big elephant or an ancient mammoth. The point that I am trying to make is simple – swimming in an ocean is a first hand experience, it cannot be experienced second hand, it’s not a vicarious pleasure. It’s only after swimming in an ocean that the fishes can understand or appreciate the boundless nature of ocean. The same is true for enlightenment , talking or listening to an enlightened soul will never make you enlightened, it will remain a step in our journey, a journey that each one of us must make alone . We all have to transverse the distance between our three dimensional world of money, power and survival to the stage when all of these cease to be an issue. We all might cross a highlighted or traveled path but that’s just a part of the journey neither the beginning nor the end. At the end we all must discover our gods and banish our own demons.

singh.ranjan@gmail.com