Gods and Devotees: Wondering aloud, seeking answers

This post is in response to http://sahajapatel.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/yes-indeed-the-gods-must-be-crazy/ by my friend. I request all my readers to read the original post, without which my post does not make complete sense. Comment there too if you wish, and here too if you will. In any case, please ensure that the comments are either going to be a cause of enlightening or an effect thereof and that they are not going to hurt anyone’s sentiments in an inhuman way. Thank you!

Below is my response.

I am glad you wrote out your feelings clearly. This is the first blog post I read from you, and I do like it for the content and the presentation.

While I don't stand by your side of the faith, I can clearly see the stand that makes complete sense to you. Thus, I try to understand this much - tell me only if you feel that my question is not to offend but to know your answer sincerely:

God is omnipresent, I agree, and can take several forms, I agree too. "God is in Sathya Sai Baba" - I don't have any issues accepting this. But, my issues comes up when someone says "Sathya Sai Baba is (the) God". God is in you, in me, and in all the atheists and theists alike - that's what I believe in. When I don't say "Kiran is God" or "Sahaja is God", I would not also say "Sathya Sai Baba is God". (By the way, I went to Hindu temples, churches, mosques, Buddhist aaraama-s/temples, and Jain mandir-s in the past, and prayed to the God at all those places of worship.)

It's a feeling of assurance that the God is in some form - physical or not - at all times among us, but why should that form/presence be confined to local pockets/individuals? I can understand and accept sthala-maahaatmyam (power/sanctity/greatness of a place) but why attribute godliness to certain individuals only? When God is omnipresent, He/She is present in all life forms, from bacteria to blue whales. Why is it necessary that one should give one living, human form to God? I know Religion does that all the time, so that people have something to place their faith on. But apparently, your posts clearly tells that you are beyond that stage where you have to see God in a place of worship or in a particular form! Thus, comes my question: Why do you think God is “more apparent” in one human being than in any other form of life?

A further word of clarification:

The concept of incarnations (avataar) is different. I liked my guru Sree sirivennela Seetharama Shastry’s explanation about it: That God could possibly stop at not creating evil or at destroying evil with just one swoop of a hand but God takes the trouble to come down [avataraNa (Skt.) = the act of descent] sometimes to restore dharma so that we earthlings can learn by example and start following similar protocol (by giving time and opportunities for evil to transform into good and then be righteous/virtuous enough to “kill” the evil – at least metaphorically speaking – before we pronounce ourselves authorized to do so, and so on).

Excepting in the incarnation as Krishna, God had never claimed to be the God! Even Rama says “aatmaam maanusham manyE raamam daSarathaatmajam sOham yasya yataSchaaham bhagavan tat braviitu mE” (I think of myself as a human born on earth, by name Rama, as the son of Dasaratha. You, O God!, tell me what I am and why I am like this.) when he was being "reminded" by Lord Shiva and others that he was the Lord Vishnu himself. God’s purpose of incarnating Oneself time and again is clearly stated in the bhagavadgeetaa SlOkam “paritraaNaayaa saadhUnaam vinaaSaaya cha dushkRtaam dharma samsthaapanaarthaaya sambhavaami yugE yugE” (To free the Good Samaritans of their suffering, to destroy the evildoers, to establish dharma, I happen [to come down] in every eon.) And, the sequence of incarnations is also quite clearly mentioned. I don’t have issues in accepting Buddha as an incarnation of God (since I don’t attribute religion to God!) or in telling myself that every enlightened individual must ensure swadharma-vartanam (living by one’s dharma) until the tenth incarnation of God comes in the form of Kalki, descending from the Heavens (very much like The Bible’s Book of Revelation reads).

So, repeating my question in another form, would I be wrong if I do not acknowledge God in one particular human being a-temporally, when I know God is omnipresent?

N.B.: Please note that I have NO questions about the enormous service that the Sathya Sai Baba has initiated. This post is not about the service of a human being and/or an organization that the human being initiated. In fact, this post is not even about Sathya Sai Baba, as even you may actually realize upon a second reading/reminiscence.

Welcoming 2011...

Only a "bit" of information changes - from 0 to 1 - from 2010 to 2011. If we think deep, that's a whole new state of existence!

(Translated from my own Telugu blog post):

A second lost in utter haste, would it ever return?
Would each part of the day explain its own lesson?
...
Time doesn't pity, like us humans, if you falter or fall,
Nor until you come does even a minute of it stall!

(The original Telugu verse is a part of a lyric composed by "sirivennela Seetharama Shastry, but it's the language of our hearts - that's singular, yes, because these cautionary statements are being rendered by one unified voice that belongs to all of us!)

..."Your questions are yours [to resolve]", the time reminded us, only after already hinting us that "the answer is within the question". Off goes 2010 without fail, and 2011 has to come in surely too. Between this switch, how better did we get, how many/what did we reform, what/how many lessons did we learn? - these are the only important questions. Before the new year brings more lessons, revising the old syllabus thoroughly is our part. We do not complete that exercise, the fear of time doesn't change how many ever calendars may come and go. It's not the new year that we must welcome, but it's our own selves that we must proactively cleanse before we enter the temple of a new year. It's said that fear or devotion form the basis for our customs. We should know whether we are welcoming the new year with fear or devotion or an ignorance that knows neither ...before time runs over us.

A weekend morning…

Ah, it's Saturday morning in early December! What do you expect? Sleep? ...Alas! I had to go to the lab for an 8-hour shift that starts at 8 a.m!

Bicycling three miles is not something I saw as an issue... if only it didn't snow all night! I knew I would have this experience in this Winter, but I didn’t expect it so soon, given that the first hint of snow was only the 1st of December; today is just the 4th. The experience started as an "Oh my, awesome!" one when I saw the heap of snow on the seat of my bicycle and the handlebar. Within a mile... I was like "Oh my God, awful!" ...Of course, anyone should say that - at least after slipping, falling, and sliding on the road "very smoothly" without even a forewarning... all in less than a second! What's more? I repeat the act after 100 meters or so, this time even more gracefully... so neatly that I can't even realize why my cycle chain came off its wheel! And, even that, I notice only after going for a “take #2” on the same act immediately after I get up - my shoes developed a new sole of ice and were sort of shaking hands with the road, thanking it for the makeover!

And, oh yes, the chain came off, and there’s no thinking of trying to set it back. After all, I had done that earlier on this same bicycle in the cold of a night, and it took me about 20 minutes to get it all done, not to mention the amount of grease I covered myself with! I saw a car coming towards me, and thankfully, it was a lab security officer going on rounds to find people like me (or that’s what he said)! Without him, it’d have taken me a long time to reach my lab, due to the slippery walk dragging along a bicycle, and did I mention the backpack with a laptop in it? (Oh, yes, I fell down all the three times with the backpack still on me!)

Before I tell out the moral of the story, I cite a little piece from Sreemat-bhaagavatam: Lord Krishna fights with Jambavan(tha) for a long 28 days and takes out all the energy out of the bear-warrior. (28 days of duel, man!, I am always amazed when I realize that! After all, even the Great Battle at Kurukshetra, with all those lakhs of soldiers, lasted only 18 days!) And, when Jambavantha expresses his inability to fight and pleads the Lord, Lord Krishna transforms himself to the previous incarnation of Lord Rama and explains why he had to fight. After killing Ravana of Lanka, Lord Rama asks the great warrior Jambavantha to seek a wish that he can grant, and Jambavantha wishes that he wants to fight one-on-one with Lord Rama after having seen how great a warrior the latter is. Lord Rama smiles and only says that his wish shall be fulfilled in due course of time, in the next yuga/eon. Reminding Jambavantha of this episode, (Can we use “reminding” to talk about a previous yuga? I guess we can, if we can talk about a bear-warrior talking in a human voice and living through eons!) Lord Krishna says that the wish had just been granted! ...So why I did I cite this story before telling the moral I learnt? Yes, like you might have guessed, I wished that I’d ride a bicycle in snow and see how it’d feel! Ah, what a foolish wish to seek and how nightmarish when such a wish comes true! (No, my wish wouldn’t last 28 days, but I am sure that I’d have to “carefully” ride my bicycle so many times in snow nevertheless this Winter.)

Oh, yeah, I loved the experience. No, really! Only, I’d have to drop by the roadside where I locked the bicycle to a “Stop” sign, and drag it along from there. I may even get a chance to fix the chain and ride it – again in snow – if it’s not snowing right then! Who knows how crazy I am! I don’t...

Ten years…

Feb. 22, 2000 – That was the day when I stepped down a country outside India for the first time! (The airport in Frankfurt, Germany takes the credit though it was but a pit stop in my journey to the United States. Atlanta, Georgia was my port of entry in the U.S.A.) Ten years… ten years passed and I spent about 8 years and a half in the U.S.A! Most of it was in Ruston, Louisiana – that’s not just “some time” – in fact, I spent most of my life in Hyderabad (~12 years), and the secondmost was in Ruston! (I lived in Kurnool for ~7.5 years.) Okay, I’ll move on… into things that (may) matter.

What can 10 years do to anyone? A lot… but the answer depends so much on one’s age, and circumstances, and family, and society, …and life, of course!

What happened to me in 10 years? When I tried to list the good, the bad, and the ugly… and “publish” only things that are passable in public mention, a few highlights came up:

* Life outside India: For someone who loves India so much, this might seem the toughest thing… but no, why would I miss something I love? India is, and will always be, (in/with/around) me!

* Family: Now, that’s mostly out of scope for a “publishable” blog, but spending about 2 years with family is …less, more, alright? Again, the family that I love is with me. I did lose some people on the way… it pains, ever!

* Friends: For someone who spent nearly 50% of life with friends, it’s tough to separate family from friends - call me an emotional fool, but that’s what I always have been. Some friends, whom I don’t even want to call friends but only treat them as family, got closer than before the 10 years, and a few walked out of my life. It hurts to this day, to miss one of my dearest brothers for over 8 years… since Jan. 16, 2002… some damage is irrepairable. (At least one brother returned… and a lot more joined the flock in my heart. Time to rejoice? Time to forget the lost one? Never!) Most people who were close 10 years ago are still dear, and that’s something I still cherish – that’s something that tells me I am not “all wrong”… A lot more walked in and walked out, some casually and some closely… But, nothing is more hurting than the first wound that’s afresh always. I am sorry, brother, I still am… and I shall ever be! (Oh, by the way, let me admit that I wounded myself and several others too through my wails and wounds!)

* I: What have I done to myself?! Where am I!? Am I still around? This is the question that lingers on my mind each day, sub-consciously most of the time (thankfully), and conscisously several times in 10 years! A few attempts to end it all, a few attempts to try to learn what’s happening internally (albeit with external help), a few attempts to “refresh” and “reload” myself like a webpage by rejuvenating myself from my ashes (burning myself in the pyre of my poetry), several successful yet futile attempts to be “correct in everything I do”, several attempts to try to love people unconditionally (yet expecting reciprocation and thus failing myself many a time), all the while trying to keep myself “alive” …without knowing what happened to ME! Peace… has been evading me - as much as I avoided it – and short-(lived) temper had been a friend that took me in many a time. I succumbed to the temperament that hugged me tight and assured me that I can turn to it in any situation - against any individual/group/circumstance – the temparement that told me to accept my peacelessness and move on into the vanity of the vacuum that I soon learnt to call L-I-F-E. It took an effort… a lot of it… to believe that my people were not mine (And, how can they be, when I am not “I” any more?) and those that stayed with me thought I didn’t change any bit! Strange, isn’t it, that people who were in touch thought that I didn’t change in many ways (despite my attempts to clarify to them that I changed), and people who lost touch thought I changed a lot (though I struggled to prove that I didn’t change any bit)! …Wait a minute, what am I doing here?! Brooding over the past? Or, leaning over the future? Since when, my dear self, did you stop living in the present? How can I remember, when I lost the sense of time!? Yeah, yeah, ten years… it’s a sudden realization, of course! As sudden as all the rest of it is!

* Society: This has been my best teacher, friend, philosopher, guide, mentor, …and tormentor! All in all, it’s been my best love! (What else can I love unconditionally, when I expect something in return from every individual, God included, that I love!?) The Society of the last ten years made me a much better poet/writer, apart from reminding me that I was an aesthetic, artiste, critic, reviewer, student, learner, teacher, guide, philosopher, friend, lover, giver, taker, …parasite, maniac, rouge, escapist, and various other things unpublishable! Most of all, Society made me realize that I exist! That’s most of what I can today call “juice of my life”! Isn’t that why I push it constantly and try to expand it beyond all known bounds!

…One thing is certain. I did lose a lot of “something”… something that belongs to my family, to my friends, to my society, and to my self – innocence, purity, patience, piety, serenity of my own Ego! The child in me is still alive… struggling each moment to be alive …for all those rightful “owners” that I just mentioned! As much as I failed, I still can be quite successful at keeping a lot of my parents’ hopes on me shattered, at keeping my friends’ minds puzzled about my mindset, and keeping myself guessing about me still trying to understand myself while I try and answer all queries about anything else in the grand old Universe!

Ten years… what can ten years do to you? Time passes, of course… don’t let yourself pass! I am struggling with myself right now… but I know I am not letting myself pass with time! …I started writing my first major (English) prose aboard the flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt, ten years ago… “My Experiences outside India”, I titled it. It never moved on beyond a few days, yet all of it is fresh in my mind, how many times ever I may “format” and “reformat” my mind! See, I am alive! After all, what can mere ten years do to YOU!?

How to cleanse or better a system? (Part #0)

This post has been moved. All the series shall continue there.

N.B: There's no particular reason for this decision. This "orphaned" introduction to the series had been dangling on this page too long now, also hindering the process of translating other thoughts into blogs. Thus, I thought I shall take my own sweet time for the "series" and continue with my Random Ramble here.

RDB - A generation ...awakens?

Rang De Basanti (RDB) - a movie that most of the Indian youth liked in the recent times. What's with these patriotic movies that people catch on? Several people have appreciated Sarfarosh, but that didn't bring Hindus and (Indian) Muslims any closer. Lagaan wouldn't probably have been such a huge hit if it involved something other than cricket. Swadesh was only a moderate hit, yet half of those who saw the movie do not know Association for India's Development (AID). Given the scenario, what social impact will RDB now have? That's my primary concern soon as I pause appreciating the technical gloss the movie has to offer. Without a social impact, if the movie just brings some money to the producer and more movies to the cast/director, I am unhappy yet. (Well, I am happy actually, if someone follows suit the formulaic way and goes about making a similar movie with Gandhi instead of Bhagat Singh in its central theme, but that's a different story now.)

RDB raises spirits of the youth, gives them a feeling that they can be the change, tells them to stand up and protest the way Indian politics is. But, if all the male leads in the movie conspire to commit a crime (yes!), and then continue on to preach that the youth can bring a change by joining politics, administrative services, military, etc., what message are we passing to the youth exactly? I still feel that the current youth might not even think much more than merely appreciating the movie. Even if someone wants to do something, there's no proper channel to put their thoughts in, no person or organization to guide them. Most organizations that rose lately to serve the society are unfortunately either confined to local pockets due to practical implications or are affiliated to the existing political parties/ideologies.

Such movies as RDB were there in the past, and there'll be more in the future. (In fact, I dare to say that RDB's plot, and not the presentation or the spirit, is something that vaguely resembles a 1994 Suresh-Vani Viswanath-starrer Telugu movie titled "marO Quit India", which I am sure, not more than a handful of us have heard of. This parallel is drawn by yours truly, since I was the one who watched the Telugu movie twice within a span of one week... I'd not have got a chance to watch it ever again if I waited for another week!) bhaarateeyuDu (Indian), nijam, aparichituDu (anniyan), yuva, and probably yet-to-go-on-sets satyaagrahi and satyamEva jayatE are all the same in their theme... but a majority of these movies show violence as a tool to eradicate certain individuals causing harm to the society. Unfortunately, that's not even a remote part of a practical solution. Why did a revolutionary hero like Bhagat Singh not live till the time India was independent? Name one such revolutionary who did live till then. A method that doesn't sustain itself/oneself until the solution is realized is plainly impractical, in my humble opinion.

My final word on this is thus: Let RDB or some other movie on the same lines rise the spirits. Let the generation awaken, but then, let the generations that follow take the path of non-violence, which largely was the reason for Indian independence. Or, at least, let the path be something that sustains the passers-by of the path until the goal is realized.

Jai Hind!

Random Replies

Still in response to “The Egoistic Me”, and “Cruise Control”:
Okay, yes, I admit I digressed a lot in my previous post, due to its irrelevance to the context you brought up the “ego” issue. The Ayn Rand’s book is nevertheless a good read, and is still in context, by the way. Now that you wrote another post that tangentially takes off on the concept of ego, I shall try to organize my thoughts on both these posts.

Ego doesn’t necessary mean bad, I reiterate anyway. What makes ego bad is disrespect towards others’ ego. About the bad ego, I am with you. Luck, in itself, is inexplicable, and how snugly it fits into the picture of ego is a different thing. What you said is right – people blame luck when they lose or the other one wins, and this is bad ego. However, as long as you regard others’ ego to be as big as your own, I think you’re not wrong or overconfident in assuming that it was your capability and planning that helped you achieve. Well, that’s enough said about Ego.

Routine is always monotonous, in fact, on the road or not, since the ride goes on. You’ve got a good analogy there – about road and life – but it’s only partially seen. Like we spoke, road is largely under control by rules of the government, and life is only influenced, not governed, by the rules of the society. It’s your choice to take which road you want, when to drive, how to go about the whole ride, who to take along, etc., and all this, in my humble opinion, is as important as the analogy that you struck on.

There’re other ways of looking at the Ferrari example – the Ferrari is neither your ego nor does it depict the lack of chance to prove yourself; it may be that you are in no hurry, and want to let the Cadillac pass anyway, with due respects to the “old Cadillac”. Or, may be, you do not want to be in the big bully’s path! See? Are these bad too?

By the way, is “cruising ahead” the soul goal or not? You seem to have contradicted yourself! I might agree that cruising ahead is not the soul goal, but then, staying put is not allowed by the rules of the society anyway; you should move anyway – choices, such as the direction you take, the speed you go, etc. are still in your hand! And, why do you think “reaching home safe is the foremost goal” for the soul? Is there a home, anyway? Which one are we talking about now?

Delay is not defeat, yes, but isn’t “defeat” the word in the dictionary of “ego” most of the times? Is that bold-facetype font addressed to the ego of yourself and/or the co-passengers? Ah, the co-passengers! You call them “real mess”? That’s only when you let them speak so loud as to influence or disturb your concentration on the road. Play your own music, and make sure they enjoy it too!

Continue blogging and I’ll ride along too.