How modern are we? and what is modern?
Is being modern the same as progress? inward, intellectual, moral progress?
Indian people are a population of contradictions. An anthropological enigma.
The land of fertility, of the cascading ganges, from the robust himalayas, of the mystical dunes, of the southern damp rainforests, of the charismatic striped cat, of the elephant-human mind concoction, the land of rituals and beliefs, traditions and dogmas.
A land so rooted in ancient traditions and philosophy yet, skimming over modernity and its travails.
Like a tree extending its branches towards the sun yet pushing its roots deep into the bed rock of the past. But is this how we flourish?
Is the brahmin holier than you? is he who presents me to God? Is he the only one who with his heritage of rituals and prayers capable of being the medium between my God and I.
And who is this God? Is he the being half elephant half human, or the lady , an epitome of sensuality with her full bosom, minuscule waist and fertile hips with 4 or 6 arms? or the little blue boy?
Is this our solace?
Why do we pray when we must act? Why do we believe when we should see? Why must we ask the "gurus" when we must introspect?
Why is respecting our elders more important than assessing what kind of people they really are? Why must we touch their feet when we do not even like them? We must somebody be given respect because he has walked this earth longer than I have… isn't it about the paths he chose to tread?
Why do we pray? We often pray for wealth. We even have a God whose job is to make sure people get rich. I would be bored as hell to be Lakshmi. I imagine her in a BMC sort of office with piles and piles of files and papers, assessing who should get rich! and what about all the assholes who are bathing and wiping their fecal matter on blood money? Do you think Lakshmi accepts bribes?
The elephant-human god of luck and auspiciousness. I must admit, he is adorable. In a pixar film. Not in the tons and tons of filth the sea regurgitates every year. And what about the millions of poor who dwell in shanties, who cannot afford nutrition or health, whose lives are a battle on the fields of misery and grimness…. This God must be pretty indiscreet, so obvious that he blesses so openly a few and leaves millions on the brink of an apocalypse.
To see these issues in a fair light would only reveal that many of the 1.2 billion still suffer in abject poverty, social imprisonment, cultural bondage and cocoons of fear. Why then did God only bless so few and some of them so undeserving?
The problem is not with God. The problem is with the people. Indian's are born with an innate response to start praying to God when things go awry. They beg for mercy, ask for forgiveness, plead for more. All humility but no humanity. This is because, deep down the tradition is of subservience to God and out of that is born a feeling of latent fear and helplessness. God is not the lady with 6 hands who has money trees growing in her backyard and brings it to some who she fancies. God is not the doe eyed elephant-boy who brings luck to people who he thinks are worthy. God is not a woman who blesses a few privileged with an education and leaves others in the shadows of ignorance. It is us.
Why is it that we turn to god when things go wrong? Why are most people living in fear of god when they do something wrong or shameful?
The problem is that India has lost its conscience, the ability to listen to its inner voice that tells most people what is ok or not. We have outsourced that to God. He will decide that. He will give me. He will forgive me. He will bestow me. He will punish me. He will rectify. And we sit quietly. When we do something wrong, we are more fearful of what God will do, than what it means as a human being to do such a thing? Why are we more afraid of what the society will say or what implications that will have, rather than what the commitment of the act did to the receiver? Where is the conscience of this nation? We have created all these castes and sects that govern life. We have imprisoned life to follow our little rules. Curbed its greatness, the flourishing that comes from the magnitude of its strength and power. Even if we did not instrument these social creations, we follow them century through century without question or revolt. And no, do not say it doesn't exist. Even in so called modern societies of India, there is always judgement regarding who are your friends, who are you colleagues, who are your in-laws, how rich is the boy, what caste is he, how fair is the girl, how tall is she? Are these the markers that we restrict life to? What about judging people on the merit of their humanity, their holding as a person?
India is rooted in fear of many things. We are always proceeding towards more money, more things, better standing in society, recognition, power, security. And i don't know what for! In our acquisition of these things, our need of control over our life we have closed our hands to the fruit of life that falls from its tree of plentitude. We ask young boys, "what do you want to do now", "what plans do you have for your future", "What are you doing to get to this", boys of 17, 18, 19. Tell me you weren't asked this!!! and the girls are taught to be good at housekeeping, at raising her family, choosing the right boy, looking after her "home". When we earn we begin to save. For the future. We work hard and then harder. Talk about money and security. But what about living? I don't mean being able to buy expensive clothes and shoes and being able to travel first class to far flung destinations. I don't mean being able to afford staying in a presidential suite and having reservations at the newest, more expensive restaurant in the city. I don't mean buying the breguet or the jewelry from cartier. These are acquisitions that will perish. These are things that you can loose, these are things that loose their luster over time. But what about what really matters? What about the indelible mark we will leave as a society. Will it be just a mark of wealth and prosperity and nothing to do with humanity and the joy that it spreads? Will we never stop the caste killings or the killings of young brides and grooms from mismatched castes, or dowry, or bribes? Will we never stop and make sure that our environment is protected and saved for our children? Will we never enquire into ourselves and remove our construction of fear and traditions that have no meaning?
I know that sometimes one cannot individually stop all the horrible things that are happening in the remote or far away places in India. And the point is not to extend physical help. After years of providing tangible help, some horrible, unthinkable, unimaginable traditions still do exist. And the only way to help this is to firstly, not help. We are not handicapped. We are not mentally challenged. We are only handicapped by the power of conditioning and tradition. When this society evolves, singularly each person and the other, when there is an inward revolution, of the mind, of the state (of our being); when we prove that we have the intelligence to question, to investigate, to look, to seek, than we shall find that the answer is in the question. Then we will abolish this archaism, this society that dwells in duality of morals and ethics. We will see that the only morals that matter are the answers from a raised conscience. That will be the solution to a lot of our problems.
And we will see that God does exist. And there is no need to live in subservience of God. We need no messengers, we need no gurus or sadhus, no maharajas or holymen to perform rituals and chants and that if we really understand life, how grand and unimaginably rich it is, what it holds for us and everything it wants to present to us, we will allow life to take care of us. Life holds the greatest energy, it enables the blossoming of flowers, the blooms of algae, the mutation of viruses, the evolution of human intelligence. It is what brings us here and then extinguishes us. So what can be more holy than life? What is more holy than love? Than the truth that lies in our faces but the truth that we do not see? If we remove these masks of fear we can find the strength to understand what is right or wrong and in that understanding we will abolish so many things that are a creation of our thought, the manifestation of our many fears. We will live with knowing that when you love life, you live the truth and that is what is most holy. It will give us strength to listen to the intelligence that has been dormant for generations in our emotional vaults. And then we will really progress and not just be a society known for their accumulation of wealth and prosperity but a society that breeds happy, conscientious and righteous people. A society that lives in accordance with the pitch and tones and life and not the rules and traditions, the conditions and dogmas that restrict it.
