Spiritualism - Eternal Voice

I firmly believe that the core of religionis 'Love' - love without discrimination,love without expectation, love in thename of one God of all and love asthe 'Direct Representation of DivinePresence'.We recently had an inter-faith rally in Amravati conducted bythe Police Commissioner and it was a remarkable success. Ilater wrote an article in The Hitavada of Nagpur referring to my24-year 'living together' with leprosy patients and mentioning aBhajan which I often sing in chorus with the patients:Mujh mein Ram tujh mein Ram sabh mein Ram samaayaSabse karlo pyaar jagat mein koee naheen paraaya.(God is in me, God is in you, God is in everyone. Let us love everyonebecause God resides in every heart.)ConflictWhen I am asked to discuss 'religious harmony and universalpeace', I have a strange sense of shame. The reality is soobvious but when religion itself becomes a hypocrite's pastime,a politician's gimmick, or a businessman's stock-in-trade, thenthe discussions alone will be an exercise in futility. Let us seewhy we make no headway. Conflicts go on rising, massacrescontinue, exploitation is on the increase and all this despite theincrease in the number of prayer houses and pseudo-saints. Thefact is that we revere Mahatma Gandhi on 2nd October and30th January but have no desire to follow him in practice.We have lost our moorings and morality is at the lowest ebb.Without morality religion is an empty slogan.We are unwilling to sacrifice even our privileges and we areunwilling to observe the rule of law.To lay down one's life for one's principle is now a thing of thepast and unless we are prepared to sacrifice our life forrighteousness, we can become only drawing room debaters.Gandhiji did not preside over seminars and issue deliberatelyvague statements when people were killing each other. He didnot evade issues. He was in the thick of rioting mobs and waswilling to lay down his life which he did. We confuse illegalitywith political benefits. We talk of conversion-debates whenpeople of one religion kill those of others. We hide behindslogans and we often indulge in double-speak. Gandhiji paid,with his life, for his faith in his convictions. We are after powerbut talk of religion and peace. Godse murdered Gandhiji witha gun, we murder his principles with our political and selfishlip-service.Practising TruthA congenial atmosphere can be created only if we all begin topractice the concepts of our religion because essentially allreligions preach love and peace. It is only the bigots whothemselves have not understood their religion and it is only theexploiters who do not wish to lead righteous lives preach hatredand since we are all ignorant about the real values, we aremisled. In reality religious harmony and universal peace are thetwo sides of the same coin but cause of hiatus in what we sayand what we do, we cannot live happily together. Guru Nanakhad emphatically preached:schu ErY sBu ko aupir scu Awcwru ] (62)Sachah(u) oar-ei sabh(u) ko Oopar(i) sach(u) aachaar(u).(Truth is above everything but higher than truth is truthful conduct).If we all live the truth of our religions, we can manifestlyprove that religious harmony and universal peace wouldbecome a reality.Let us not forget that there is another dimension to the problemof universal peace, that of poverty. If we really want to solvethe problems of poverty, we should be doing our religious dutyof looking after the down-trodden people, but what we witnessis not only our aversion towards the poor but our deliberatedisinterest in raising their standard of living. We go on creatingmore poverty by usurping their rights and exploiting theirignorance and innocence. Religion then becomes only a tool forexploitation because its basic morality is missing.Poverty - An Obstacle to PeaceWe love prophets, we love religion but only externally. Noweven religion has become a five-star culture. We nowconcentrate on external cosmetism, external celebrations,external extravagant ostentation. We believe that bigger the carin which a holy man travels and the bigger the house in whichhe lives, the more spiritual he is, depriving the poor people ofthe faith of the pious and the pure. We cannot deny that evensafe drinking water is not available to a lot of people. We cannotdeny that all our people do not have two square meals a day.What kind of religion do we preach and practise which does notensure even drinking water and two square meals to ourpeople? What peace do we talk about? And what religiousharmony? If we had practised reality of religion, there wouldnot have been starvation deaths on the one hand and heaps offood-grains being eaten by worms. Again, we would not havebeen involved in five-star ostentation in the face of humiliatingpoverty of our people. Indeed, the rulers too deny the poortheir due and exploit them in the name of religion and Sewa,whereas in reality they themselves live a life far removed fromthat of the people. The seminars and conferences also becomemeaningless with repetition of empty slogans of peace.Where is the connection between religious harmony and abjectpoverty? There can be no peace when the stomach is empty,women are humiliated and bonded labor is exploited. Practiseof religion implies morality and integrity of the highest order.In conclusion, let me recount the story of Guru Nanak, whochose to stay with Bhai Laalo, a poor artisan of low caste andwas upbraided by high-caste Brahmins. Malik Bhago, like ourpresent exploiters, was aghast, when Guru Nanak's detractorscomplained that he had broken caste rules and stayed witha low-caste person. Malik Bhago ordered Guru Nanak to jointhe public meal he arranged for all holy men, but Guru Nanakrefused to join and, when pressed, pointed out that his wealthwas collected by exploitation of the poor and contained theirblood, while the food of the honest and poor Laalo was pure.We witness the same spectacle today with ostentatiousmarriages, birthdays and political bashes while the exploiterstalk of religion and peace. Our black money runs in crores. Ourpoor people sleep on footpaths sometimes without food andsafe drinking water. Indeed even a devil can quote scriptures,but unless we have our internal commitment and internal purity,we cannot make religious harmony and universal peacea reality. This reality of living happily together would only meanthe living happily together of the elite. If we want this reality tobelong to all the people, then our hearts must change and wemust decide to do unto others what we want to be done to us.Peace cannot come with external religious words when thepoor can collect only the crumbs thrown by ostentatiouslyrich exploiters.- Nothing is permanent in thisworld, not even our troubles...- I like walking in therain, because nobodycan see my tears...- The most wasted dayin life is the day onwhich we have notlaughed.- Charlie ChaplinParable of the Manand his DogA man went out for a walk with his lovely dog. He was veryproud of the dog. It always went before him. This man had anumbrella in his hand. To show the people around him that hispet-dog would do anything for him, he made the dog carry theumbrella between its teeth. And it proudly walked before him,with the middle of the umbrella firmly caught in its teeth.Suddenly it began to rain. The man wanted to make use of theumbrella. But the dog was hundred yards ahead of him.He ran towards it. The dog, not knowing why the master ranafter it unusually, was frightened and ran towards the houseat top-speed. The proud man was drenched to the skin, beforehe could reach the house and recover the umbrella.The Man, blinded by pride and ignorance, entrusts itsspiritual consciousness to the mind. For some time the mindseems to walk before and lead the Man; and theconsciousness is there firmly held by the mind and the Manfeels that it is safe. There is a heavy shower of miseries ofmundane life and temptations of sense-objects. The dogmindwith the umbrella of spiritual consciousness hadparted from the Man and is separated by great distance.If the umbrella of spiritual consciousness had not beenentrusted to the mind (which incidentally, could not makeproper use of it), the Man could have protected itself fromthe rain of miseries and temptations. Now, the faster he runsforward to get relief from miseries and temptations, thefarther this relief seems to recede.Thus, O Man! commit not the folly of entrusting your spiritualwealth and welfare to the defective mind. It is mostundependable. It will desert you in the time of trials. Learn totrust in the Lord alone. Make Him your sole support.Eternal Voice Nov, 2010 - Jan, 201116 17