THE END OF INDIA
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Agreed that it is entirely up to all individuals to spend his or her time as they like. If they get fulfilment out of prayer and ritual they have every right to do so. But what men of religion have no right to do is to impose their religiosity on other people. The use of loudspeakers for azaan or kirtan and bhajan mandalis amounts to such an imposition. The craziest example is the all-night jagarans which disturb the sleep of entire localities. The use of official media like radio and TV for propagating religions through broadcasts of celebrations and hymns needs to be curbed. Taking out processions through crowded bazaars and upsetting civic life also amounts to imposition of one’s ritual on other people, and should be discouraged.
A modern fad which has gained widespread acceptance amongst the semi-educated who wish to appear secular is the practice of meditation. They proclaim with an air of smug superiority, ‘Main mandir-vandir nahin jaata, meditate karta hoon (I don’t go to temples or other such places, I meditate).’ The exercise involves sitting lotus-pose (padma asana), regulating one’s breathing and making your mind go blank to prevent it from ‘jumping about like monkeys’ from one (thought) branch to another. This intense concentration awakens the kundalini serpent coiled at the base of the spine. It travels upwards through chakras (circles) till it reaches its destination in the cranium. Then the kundalini is fully jaagrit (roused) and the person is assured to have reached his goal. What does meditation achieve? The usual answer is ‘peace of mind’. If you probe further, ‘and what does peace of mind achieve?’, you will get no answer because there is none. Peace of mind is a sterile concept which achieves nothing. The exercise may be justified as therapy for those with disturbed minds or those suffering from hypertension, but there is no evidence to prove that it enhances creativity. On the contrary it can be established by statistical data that all the great works of art, literature, science and music were works of highly agitated minds, at times minds on the verge of collapse. Allama Iqbal’s short prayer is pertinent:
Khuda tujhey kisee toofaan say aashna kar dey
Keh terey beher kee maujon mein iztiraab naheen
(May God bring a storm in your life,
There is no agitation in the waves of your life’s ocean.)
A word which constantly appears in the Allama’s writings is ‘talaatum’, restlessness of the mind, as the sine qua non of creativity.
The new religion of India should be based on a work ethic. It should provide leisure time to recoup one’s energy to resume work, but discourage uncreative pastimes. We must not waste time. There is a hadith of the Prophet which says:
La tasabuddhara Innadhawa;
Hoo Wallahoo.
(Don’t waste time; time is God.)
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I would like to sum up all that I have said about prayer, ritual and meditation in a slogan I have coined as a motto for modern India: ‘Work is worship, but worship is not work.’
I believe that the essence of every person’s religion should be the endeavour not to hurt another person or living thing and to preserve his environment. Ahimsa Paramo Dharma—nonviolence is the supreme religion. Nonviolence in this context is not a negative but a positive concept, requiring promotion of goodwill and preservation of life. Violence is the ultimate form of vulgarity and has to be eschewed in action and in speech.
Our religion should make provision for the future. It should incorporate family planning. After the birth of two children, parents should be required to undergo sterilization. We have no right to overload an already over-populated country. Likewise cutting down trees, polluting catchment areas, rivers, lakes and seas should be regarded as irreligious acts. The earth is also in dire need of rejuvenation. We are fast denuding it of its forest cover and making it sterile by using of chemical fertilizers, and destroying bird and insect life through the use of insecticides. Humans when they die should be returned to the earth from which, according to most religions, they emanate. Destruction of forests to provide wood for construction must be stopped forthwith. Where gas or electric crematoriums are not available, the dead, irrespective of their religion, should be buried, not in permanent graves which render land unproductive, but in open spaces earmarked for the purpose. And every third year the ground should be tilled and returned to agricultural use.
I will sum up my faith in time-worn cliches: good life is the only religion. Ingersoll put it in more felicitous language: ‘Happiness is the only good; the place to be happy is here; the time to be happy is now; the way to be happy is to help others.’ Ella Wheeler Wilcox put the same thought in plainer words:
‘So many gods, so many creeds, so
many paths that wind and wind
When just the art of being kind is all
that the sad world needs.’