Although there are as yet no beggars or contribution/subscription seekers around gurudwaras, the commercialization that has taken place in Sikh ritual is as bad as among Hindus. There are gradations of akhand (non-stop) and saptah (one week) paaths, depending on how much you are willing to pay for them: novice granthis are cheaper to hire than old hands with clearer enunciation. The rates raagis charge vary enormously, ranging from hundreds to thousands of rupees. Some of them have their rates printed on their visiting cards. I recall one jatha (group) of raagis from Delhi asking for an additional amount if you wanted them to bring their brand new Japanese harmonium.
The commercialization of religious rituals was well exposed, in all its crass vulgarity, decades ago, by the trouble that brewed in the temples of Badrinath and Kedarnath (high in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand). These temples are manned by Namboodri Brahmins from Kerala. None but they could enter the sanctum sanctorum or touch the deities enshrined within.
Apart from drawing regular monthly salaries, they had established a claim to seven-and-a-half per cent of the offering made at the temples. Besides the Namboodris holding the rank of high priests (rawals), there are pandits and Vedpathaks (those familiar with the Vedas) with different functions allotted to them. Rituals are rated like menus of an expensive restaurant. The entire priestly fraternity of Badrinath and Kedarnath were up in arms because the commissions of its members from the offerings were sought to be reduced; they threatened to stop performing rituals, bathe the deities or offer prayers on behalf of pilgrims.
And the less said about the high-profile ashrams which have mushroomed across the length and breadth of the country, under the patronage of jet-setting babas, gurus, and matajis, the better. Look at the cash, solid gold and silver amounting to crores and crores recovered from the ashram of Satya Sai Baba at Putaparthi in Andhra Pradesh! Who could have imagined the 24-year-old Karmapa with crores in cash and that too in various foreign currencies of the world stacked away in his temple-residence in Sidhbari in Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh)? Look at the huge empires created by the likes of the yoga guru Ramdev and some others, who have fallen afoul of the law. For instance, the spiritual guru, Asaram Bapu, with his headquarters at Ahmedabad in Gujarat and with many ashrams under his wing, had been accused of several crimes, including murder, land encroachment and tax evasion. However, the charges could not be proved. Another guru (with a huge following), accused of murder and also sexual misconduct, was Gurmeet Rahim, who heads an organization known as Dera Sacha Sauda, based in Sirsa, Haryana. Yet another guru, Swami Nithyananda (with his base at Bangalore) was involved in a sex scandal and caught on camera. He has claimed that the images in the video – telecast by a South Indian news channel and also available on the Internet – have been morphed. It seems that now our so-called religious and spiritual gurus too are in direct competition with our corrupt political netas.
Priests, raagis and other similar figures have acquired vested interests in religious practice. Until and unless they are divested of their stranglehold on places of worship, there is little chance of worship and there is little chance of their being restored as havens of spirituality. It is time somebody called the bluff of these money-grabbing parasites and made the houses of God fit places for deities and their worshippers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEED FOR A BAN ON RELIGIOUS PROCESSIONS
… none of us has any right to impose our religious presence on people of other faiths. That is exactly what religious processions do and that is why I think it is time we curbed our desire to organize them.
I have not found a single line in any scripture of any faith or in the pronouncements of prophets of different religions exhorting followers to proclaim their faith by taking out processions: in short religions processions have no religious sanction. They are an entirely man-manufactured tradition designed to disrupt civic life and annoy people who belong to other faiths. They succeed in doing both.
Processions and parades take place in all countries. But they are largely of a secular character. In the many years I lived in foreign countries I hardly came across a single religious procession. The few I read about were like those in India, taken out to provoke hostility and like those in Ireland of protestant Orangemen through streets inhabited by Catholics. They invariably succeeded in achieving their sinister object. Christians and Muslims do not take out many processions. One occasionally hears of statues of Virgin Mary or some saint being paraded through the streets. But not very frequently. Sunni Muslims have no tradition of procession taking. Shias do so once a year at Muharram. Processions are a disease largely confined to Hindus, Sikhs and Jains.
We should appeal to leaders of these communities to do some rethinking on the subject. Some Hindu festivals are procession-based. Immersion of idols of Kali and Ganapati require them to be taken out from places where they are installed. The rath yatra (literally chariot journey) at Jagannath Puri in Orissa is entirely processional. So are some Hindu festivals in South India. Exceptions could be made in these cases.
I know there is no religious sanction for processions in Sikhism. Indeed, right through the 40-year rule of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, there is not one reference in his daily diaries to processions on the birthdays of the Gurus or on the anniversaries of their martyrdom. Though a devout Sikh, the maharajah took part in only two processions in the year: One on Basant Panchami, when he led his Amazonian bodyguard to pay homage at the tomb of Madho Lal Hussain (a Sufi saint), and the other during Dussehra. Mammoth processions led by elephants, horsemen and bands, which have become de rigueur of Sikh religious expression, began during British rule and continue with increasing fervour.
I have nothing against religious gatherings. By all means have your Ram Leelas – but in grounds meant for them. Have your dewans and keertans in open spaces when the congregations are too large to be contained in gurduwaras. But none of us has any right to impose our religious presence on people of other faiths. That is exactly what religious processions do and that is why I think it is time we curbed our desire to organize them. This has to be done by leaders of different religious communities and not left to the government because any governmental action in this matter is bound to be misunderstood and resented. If you agree with me, write to the president of the temple or gurudwara committee. If you don’t, write to me giving reasons for disagreeing with me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE QUEST
All I want to ask seekers is: Is it worth spending so much time and effort to get a vison of the truth when the only guarantee of success is God’s whim?
I always wonder as to what are people who spend many hours in prayer or meditation looking for? When questioned, they usually reply that they are seeking peace of mind or looking for the truth within themselves. I can understand that those with disturbed minds (the vast majority of humans) should want to obtain inner peace. However, when it comes to the Truth, I am all at sea. By truth with a capital ‘T’, they presumably mean reality, the mystery of the life of God. Whether or not they succeed in their search I do not know because I have yet to meet anyone who claims that he or she has. They only follow others who they believe have achieved the ultimate.
Striving towards the attainment of divine knowledge is common to most religious systems. In Hinduism, it is the rousing of the ‘kundalini’ (latent energy) from its spinal base and making it travel upwards in stages to the cranium. Sikhism has similar levels of progress ending in Sacch Khan – the abode of truth and bliss. Muslim Sufis were more explicit in delineating these progressive stages till they were able to abolish their own entities to merge with the divine, a process called fanaa.
The most lucid account of this quest is to be found in Mohyuddin ibn al Arabi’s short treatise Journey to the World of Power, published in English translation. Arabi was born in Spain in A.D.1165 and died in Damascus in A.D. 1240 AD. He had his first mystical experience when he was only 20 years old. He waited another 20 years before he put it in the form of a letter to
his stepson, Sadruddin.
Ibn Arabi has listed six stages before the searcher could ‘sit on the carpet of his vision’. He assures seekers that ‘while the paths are many, the way of truth is single’, somewhat similar to the Rig Veda’s ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti (there is one truth; there are many ways of expressing it). I will not go into the details of different stages of the scala menti – the mental ladder that a person has to climb to reach the ultimate.
What needs to be emphasized is that no matter how hard and conscientiously a person tries, he or she cannot reach the goal without the grace of God. This finds confirmation in Prophet Mohammed’s night of ascension. When he is said to have travelled to Mecca in the blinking of an eyelid, Abu Jahal, one of the Prophet’s chief detractors (hence the word ‘jahalat’ for ignorance) was sceptical about the experience. He told the Prophet: ‘Now lift one foot off the ground.’ Prophet Mohammed complied. ‘Now lift the other,’ said Abu Jahal. ‘I cannot,’ replied the Prophet. ‘If you cannot even lift your two feet off the ground how can you claim to have gone to the highest heaven last night?’ demanded Abu Jahal. The Prophet replied: ‘I did not say “I went”. I said “I was taken”.’
Ibn Arabi’s death was dramatic. He was grieved to see how far the Damascenes had departed from Islam and turned to the worship of mammon. ‘People of Damascus’, proclaimed Ibn Arabi, ‘the God you worship is under my feet’. They did not understand his message and sentenced him to death. Before dying Ibn Arabi made a prophecy: ‘When “seen” will enter “sheen” (letters of the Arabic alphabet) the truth will be discovered.’
When the Ottoman Sultan Salim II occupied Damascus in A.D. 1516, he ordered that the grave of Ibn Arabi be located and excavated. When this was done, they found a hoard of gold coins. The people then understood the prophecy and the message: Salim (seen) had entered ‘sheen’ (the Arabic name for Syria being ‘shaam’) and that the God the Damscenes had worshipped was gold.
I have strayed from the subject. All I want to ask seekers is: Is it worth spending so much time and effort to get a vison of the truth when the only guarantee of success is God’s whim? I am reminded of Dwarka Das Shola’s lines:
Taalaash-e-haqq mein na duniya chhor ai zaahid
Kaaheen ka bhee na raheyga agar khuda na mila.
(Preacher do not abandon the world in the quest of truth.
If you do not find God, you will belong neither here nor there.)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A MAN FOR ALL REASONS: THE DALAI LAMA
I was exhilarated by being with him. He exuded an aura of goodwill, cheerfulness and crystal-clear honesty that envelops you long after you have left his presence. The Nobel Committee had done well in awarding him the peace prize in 1989 because he is a man of peace.
The invitation from His Holiness the Dalai Lama came through his representative in Delhi, Tashi Wangdi: His Holiness would be pleased to grant me an audience at his residence in Dharamshala (in Himachal Pradesh). Wangdi accompanied me in the train that took us to Pathankot (in Punjab). From there, we had to go by road to Dharamshala. I sleep badly in trains; all through the night I kept thinking of what I could ask the Dalai Lama. I had read his autobiography, My Land and My People (published in 1962), and some other books written by or on him, but had not obtained much information.
I knew the circumstances that had driven him and thousands of his followers from Tibet to seek sanctuary in India in 1959. The Indian Government had been embarrassed by his arrival and alternated between protesting against his presence and generously allowing him facilities to rehabilitate his countrymen who had followed him on Indian soil.
Several large Tibetan townships came up in our hills and plains. Far from being resented, the Tibetans won their way into the hearts of their Indian neighbours. They were (and are) law abiding, clean, disciplined, ever-smiling and quick to learn the languages of the regions in which they settled. I don’t know another people who have the same ability to speak alien tongues to perfection as the Tibetans.
In his autobiography, Freedom in Exile (1990), the Dalai Lama wrote: ‘There was no interference from Delhi over how I and the growing numbers of Tibetans conducted our lives. In accordance with popular requests, I had begun to give weekly audiences in the grounds of Birla House [in New Delhi]. This gave me the opportunity to meet a variety of people and tell them about the real situation in Tibet. It also helped me begin the process of removing the protocol which did so much to separate the Dalai Lama from his people. I had a strong feeling that we should not cling to old practices that were no longer appropriate. As I often reminded people, we were now refugees …. It is very easy to put others off by remaining aloof. So I was determined to be entirely open, to show everything and not to hide behind etiquette. In this way I hoped that poeople would relate to me as one human being to another.’
So what was I to ask His Holiness? I decided to avoid politics and ask him questions that had bothered me over the years. I have been an agnostic; he the reincarnation of God or the Buddha, I was not sure which of the two. As an incarnate he obviously believed in the theory of samsara – birth, death and rebirth in never-ending cycles, till the attainment of nirvana. As a rationalist, I could not accept this unproven theory. He also believed in karma of past lives influencing one’s fate in one’s present life. If that was so, what had this reincarnation of God or the Buddha done in his past life to be punished by being exiled from the land of his forefathers? I was not sure if he would deign to answer such questions; he might dismiss them as impertinent. On the other hand, if he did, we would have a lively theological debate, which would give me good copy.
After a nearly three-hour drive through mountainous country, we reached Dharamshala. Mcleodganj, where most of the Tibetans live, was another half-an-hour’s drive, high up a steep mountain. I was lodged in the Dalai Lama’s guest house, a modest-sized bungalow overlooking Dharamshala. His mother had spent many years there before she died. It was looked after by the wife of his youngest brother, Tentzin Chogyal, a most attractive young lady and the mother of two children. She came over in the evening. I persuaded her to join us for a drink. I asked her if the questions I intended to ask would upset the Dalai Lama. ‘I don’t think so’, she replied, in perfect English. ‘In any case there is no harm in putting them to him. He must have had enough of answering questions about Tibet, communist China and his future plans.’
My appointment was for the next day afternoon. I got to his residence half an hour early to take in the surroundings. There was a large temple facing his well-guarded mansion. There were not many people in the temple; I saw one European monk sitting in deep meditation facing the statue of the Buddha. We were led into the residence and asked to wait in the sitting room as some German visitors were still with His Holiness. A few minutes later the party of Germans left by going through the sitting room and we were asked to go in. The Dalai Lama had come out to the verandah to receive me. He apologized for keeping us waiting. He turned out to be much bigger sized than his photographs made him out to be: almost six feet in height. And muscular. His grip, as we shook hands, was like that of an all-in wrestler. I presented him with the customary scarf and he gave me one in return. I was escorted into his drawing room. I switched on my tape recorder and began as abruptly as I could: ‘Your Holiness I am not going to ask you anything about politics, but …’
He interrupted me with a loud guffaw and said: ‘Then we can relax. I have to be very cautious [while] answering political questions to journalists. What are you going to ask me?’
‘I am an agnostic. I don’t believe in God. What basis have you for saying God is the creator of the universe?’
Another guffaw of hearty laughter followed. He then stated: ‘I don’t say God created the world. The Buddha did not say God created the world. On the contrary, he said, “don’t believe in anything that your reason does not accept”.’
That floored me. I then asked my second question. ‘In that case, what is reincarnation about?’
‘We believe that people are reborn after death. If we did not, I would not be Dalai Lama.’ Yet another explosion of laughter.
I held my ground: ‘There is no scientific basis for believing in rebirth after death.’
He began to give me instances of children recalling their lives in earlier birth. Most of his examples came from India. I could sense that he was on uneasy ground. ‘Those are all childish fantasies encouraged by parents. They disappear after a few months. I do not accept them as proofs,’ I said.
‘No one asks you to do so,’ he replied calmly. He again quoted the Buddha about the supremacy of reason: ‘If you can convince me that there is nothing in the theory of reincarnation I will also reject it.’
‘Since you still believe in it, can you explain what you did in your previous birth to deserve being punished by being exiled from your homeland?’
The Dalai Lama’s English is not as good as that of many of his followers. He had his secretary repeat my question in Tibetan and replied in a mixture of Tibetan and English. He then replied: ‘Yes I am sure I and my fellow Tibetans are paying for wrongs committed by us in our previous birth. Otherwise it does not make sense.’
He realized that the answer did not make sense to me. We went on to other questions such as: Why wickedness so often triumphs over goodness? Why good people suffer while evil people prosper? Instead of the half-hour allotted to me, the interview went on for an hour and a half. The tape ran out. As did his secretary’s patience; there were other visitors waiting to see the Dalai Lama.
Agnostic Khushwant Page 14