Often I have felt that the purpose of writing these posts is to help myself remember the truth of life and its virtues that I so often forget. There are so many great men and women born on this earth. Many are now worshiped as god. Take for example Ram or Krishna or Buddha or Christ for example. These were just mortal men like us. But they are worshiped because of beautiful thought provoking messages they have conveyed.
One problem with worshipping is glory and that magnificent light that surrounds these men of substance. Light and glory are good. But the side effect is blurring of the message that these men of substance sought to convey. So here is an idol we have. The idol is beautiful. It is serene and we must enjoy worshiping the idol. But in the meanwhile, the message that the man Krishna or Ram or Buddha or Christ wanted to give gets lost. Then remains the form; a form so thoughtless, so empty. There are hundreds of Bhaktas – the devotees. These devotees pile up and line up. These devotees are full of e motions. They are full of Bhakti. But the thoughts are lost. The message is lost. So we have devotees of lot of religion and dharmas doing things exactly opposite to what their heroes taught them to do. For example Jains practice fasting. Fasting perhaps may have a purpose of “Atma Suddhi”. The cleansing of soul. But then that should entail with it lot of forgiveness and mental peace. But that is not the case. Fast then become a ritual. Fasting now is a religious ceremony. It is performed without any intention of “Atma Suddhi”. The thoughts do not change. Thoughts remain self-same. There is so much of disgruntled feeling. And fasting adds to that irritability. The purpose is lost. Religion survives. God dies.
When I was in school – long back, we were taught songs of Patriotism. It was a feeling of India V/s. World. We were taught of the long standing freedom struggle that we have undertaken as a nation. There were men and women of substance who laid their lives for us. We sang songs about Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and lot of other heroes. There was a feeling of nationality particularly being a grandson of a freedom-fighter who never claimed any pension from government. As age advanced, as knowledge of world, economy, polity increased; these feelings changed.
Slowly but steadily there came a feeling of lack of national oneness. Here was not a nation – but a group of people who were using the emotions of thousands of people. This group of people was shrewd. It was essentially power and money game and nothing more. Post 1991 – in the liberalized economy, I was a strong patron of Narasimha Rao – then Prime Minister. The pathetic government managed institutions justified need of ushering privatization at the national platform. Perhaps basic idea was good governance and honest administration away from corruption. But after 20 years we have a Prime Minister - Dr. Manmohan Singh who looks more like a representative of the US Senate rather then the head of Indian Government. Was Rao no different?
While I write this, I do admit my affiliation and complete inclination towards the Congress Party. But so what? Do I lose my right as an individual to speak out my view? While this is true, I must say and admit that BJP will make no difference if it is in power. Rather they have better potential to make it worst. Whatever, the very idea of national leader sounds redundant? That is false and it cannot be so! Here we have no leader since leadership means unity of purpose. Are we heading towards any purpose? I have serious doubts. It is just a corporate business that we are into. A corporate business!
At the party level, I have felt that there is hero worshiping. We all have leaders. The local leaders have state level affiliations and state leaders have national level affiliations. There is a gang. The purpose of gang is to accumulate power; to get into positions by using all means. This is just not true for one political party but true across the board.
Same is the case with personal lives of people. Here we have heroes like Ram or Krishna. More then these heroes we have agents who proclaim peace and prosperity in our lives. These agents claim to know God. They claim to have ability to help us go closer to God. I do not know about people or the devotees, but the god-men or heads of religious institution definitely improve their quality of life. They get into better bargaining powers with the government and with everybody around them. They muster wealth beyond imagination and live luxuries that are unknown to most of those living on this earth. All this goes on in the name of God. Poor God! He has permitting these God men to rule us in His name. And now God must wait for all the communities to get sufficiently aware so to thwart these religious leaders from doing further loss. And what a fine business is religion. In India all income by religious institution is tax free. Does not this sound like a great business? Well – it is.
I was reading Einstein’s Book – “The world as I see it”. Although the original version where he may have written relativity is beyond my intellectual comprehension which I must admit, but there are sections that are just great.
These sections reflect what a man of depth Einstein must have been. On his ideas of patriotism, Einstein writes and I quote from his book:
“…This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does by the name of patriotism--how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press…”
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