From Agnosticism to Faith!

The weekend involved a strange struggle with maters of spirituality. On Saturday, HT carried the preface of ageing Khushwant Singh’s ‘The Freethinker’s Prayer Book’, which will hit the stands around the time he turns 97.  Khushwant Singh begins with his birth in a conservative Sikh family of Hadali (now in Pakistan) when, as a child, he liked the rituals of his faith. It transports me to my own childhood, led by my grandma to a local gurudwara in Old Rajinder Nagar, sitting through the prayers patiently, waiting for that handful of steaming hot ‘kada-prasad’. Khushwant Singh began to question the rituals & dogma during his teens when studying at Delhi’s elite Modern School. In contrast, I went to a local aided school but chose to sit outside a dark, dingy temple in far off Kerala, taking care of my schoolmates’ shoes rather than change over to a dhoti to gain entry. Here the similarity ends.

Khushwant Singh understood in college how science & technology as well as the liberal arts in the western world impacted religion. Wisely, he kept his skepticism to himself while his awareness of fragile foundations of faith (rather faiths) grew in college. He touches upon prevalence of untouchability in Sikhism & claims that all religion are irrational, full of superstitions and encourage ignorance, generate more prejudice & hatred than love & friendship. Ironically, his observations appear around the time a memorial is coming up inside the Golden Temple in memory of those who were killed during ‘Operation Bluestar’. He challenges God even as a concept, dismissing with a straight face any bearing God has in making us good or bad. ‘For every Mother Teresa or Baba Amte, there are thousands who have killed & raped in the name of their gods’ & ‘the masterminds of 1984 (wonder why no one talks about rampant violence in pre-1984 Punjab!) & 2002 pogroms are ministers and party leaders. Neither the law nor God has made them pay for their crimes.’ Strong but true words though I sometimes wonder why those pulled out of buses, segregated &am killed point blank in the fields of Punjab never find a mention in the violent history of Punjab.

There are two things that are quite perplexing. Khushwant Singh, despite giving up organized religion, ‘continued to retain the outward emblems of the Khalsa because it gave me a sense of belonging and social security’. Does it mean that however much of a rationalist one may be, one still needs an emotional anchor in life? The heading of the piece calls him the ‘eternal agnostic’. He claims that he is not a man of faith, nor believes in paradise or the possibility of rebirth. With no idea where he will be after he dies, he finds himself staring into an endless dark void. Isn't a long life full of opportunities, fame, knowledge & money is expected to yield rich dividends in the form of enlightenment?

Sunday’s quest for spirituality began with Jaya Row at Kamani. She started off with a reprimand for those who cannot even take out for days in row in a year to hear her discourses on Bhagawadgita. Having missed the first three days, I squirmed but stayed on. Chapter XII of Bhagawadgita shows Krsna explaining to Arjuna that the ‘best followers of Yoga’ (Baba Ramdev flashed through my mind!) are those endowed with supreme faith and ever united through meditation with me, worship me with the mind centred on me. (v.2). Frankly, it is all easier than done. Whenever I have tried to meditate, I doze off & to mind one’s mind with varied thoughts crisscrossing every second is a herculean task. I try to focus on Jaya Row’s face, which looks stern like a school-teacher’s with an occasional smile thrown in for politeness sake.

Jaya Row laments how the nation has failed to make any investment in teaching values (Remember the moral science classes at school?). Row highlighted how we remain occupied with body, mind and intellect & forget the Atman, which remains free from joy, anger, fear and even remorse. We need to be contented with what we have since we get what we deserve, not what we desire. Once we control our burgeoning desires, we may lose the temporary joy of seeing them fulfilled but also the fear of un-fulfillment and the sorrow that follows.

The key word is ‘surrender’. Aim high, be ‘daksha’ or competent yet ‘udasin’ or uninvolved (I thought a better word would be ‘unattached’). Such action is ‘Satvic’. If you think you are the doer, you are a ‘bhogi’; if you believe you are doing everything, a Yogi (practitioner) and if you know you do nothing implying you just carry out the divine will, a jnani (knowledgeable). Hence renounce everything! Do not exult, hate, grieve or desire. Remember mind is fickle, intellect is steady: it is faith that takes us to the supreme goal. To fill the void within (Khushwant Singh staring into an endless dark void!) with light, Krsna calls upon Arjuna to be free from opposites like ‘pleasure & pain, ..without attachment to home, fixed in mind & full of devotion to Me’. Ultimately faith conquers even when the rituals fail! Surrender thyself to the Almighty God! 

 As the organizers talk about the discounts on CDs at the counter outside, my friend says we have heard it before & we return to the worldly ways.