Finding God, each to their own!




2 days back received news about an encounter in Pahalgam, a popular tourist destination in Kashmir, India. 2 armed men rounded up touring guests. The men were explicitly asked to name their religion, tested by ordering them to recite holy passages from Islamic scripture and even undressed to verify status of circumcision. Over two dozen non Muslim men were then shot at point blank range in cold blood. All this in the presence of their families. 


The incident has understandably aroused the anger of millions of Hindu people in the country and globally. The rhetoric is to retaliate against the Muslim community. The brewing animosity between the two factions is not new. But now all facts surrounding the gruesome killings are hitting the raw nerve in ways like never before. Media is adding to the chaos. Everyone, from locals, witnesses, victims, journalists, politicians, lawyers, religious leaders and ordinary citizens are voicing their opinions. The government officials are mulling the response to the crisis. Opposition is pointing fingers toward the ruling party. Citizens are drawing daggers( figuratively speaking) at fellow citizens. 

The incident has uncovered several contentious topics. Topics about the geographical borders that define India, the perpetual cross border conflict owing to the border dispute, role of religion in India, religious harmony or lack thereof in India, concepts of national identity, national integrity and national pride amongst its citizens, interpretation of laws pertaining to freedom of speech and freedom of religion in India, the integrity of law and order in the country and ability or lack thereof to have a meaningful national dialogue amongst its diverse communities. The entire thing is so jumbled up that it becomes tough to gain a reasonable clarity about where the problem lies and how to find a solution for it 

Just a few weeks before the Kashmir incident, the community of Hindu Brahmins, received a lot of flak after the postpartum death of a young woman who walked away from a hospital in Pune due to issues surrounding expenses quoted for her medical care. The hospital run by predominantly Brahmin doctors came under intense scrutiny by the media and non Brahmin factions. An angry mob attacked and ransacked a privately owned facility belonging to the parents of a concerned doctor at the other hospital. 

In both instances, the post-incident rhetoric is about hate, unlawful destruction and violence. And the resultant sentiment is that of retaliation. In the earlier case from Pune, the hate is between two subsets within the Hindu community. In the Kashmir case, hate is between two separate religions, but within citizens of the same country. The perpetrators in both cases believed that violence is justified by their hate and rage. This violence has in turn caused hate and rage in the community that was attacked. Now in both instances the sentiment of retaliation is being justified by this secondary rage. 

Question is, does their religion justify this ? Is this what either religion teaches? 

If we keep religion aside, does common sense validate the idea of retaliation? Is retaliation synonymous with justice? Is there even a trace of foresight about the endless perpetuation of hatred when subscribing to such doctrine of retaliation? Why is seeking justice without resorting to hatred and retaliation not a viable option? 

Coming back to religion, the ancient texts from both the involved religions are not uniformly interpreted by their respective followers. Each religion has believers who see universal brotherhood as the central idea and others who read in the same writings a validation for annihilating those who see things differently. The conflict that arises then within two factions of the same religion is that the people subscribing to universal brotherhood are vulnerable to attacks, physical, psychological and sociopolitical, by other religions and are accused of enabling such domination. The faction that believes in tit-for-tat action is ridiculed for its shortsightedness, lack of wisdom and perpetuation of violence. Each faction is tone deaf and blind to the other’s point of view.
Basically they begin to be divided over the idea of God and God’s teachings. Thus within the same religion, divisions occur!! Then it is hardly surprising that divisions exist between two separate religions.

There are some fundamental questions rising in my mind around this situation. How do I read the scripture? How do I understand God? What is my understanding of and personal stand on violence? What would I do when my existence is challenged by someone who thinks differently from me? 

The answers to these questions and to those questions asked earlier regarding religion and justice are not elusive. These answers are right there when looked at in the mirror of mind. Each mind has its own version of truth. My mind has its own. It is highly unlikely that my truth may be identical to that of my husband or my kids or my mother or my friends, leave alone that of strangers. Ultimately it is up to each one to find their own truths. And these truths need to be acknowledged in the context of present time, place and situation. Where I am today, I wasn’t at the same place ten-twenty years ago. I wasn’t even there a year ago. I may not be in the same position a year from now. 

The concept here is about what is important to me at what juncture. What is my understanding of life at the moment? What I am willing to sacrifice at this juncture? What do I prioritize? The answers to these questions need to be verified against the reality of physical and psychological responses and not idle intellectual musings. 

For instance, taking a hypothetical situation about an intruder into my home in the middle of the night who threatens to harm me physically or my family members, would I stick to universal brotherhood and let him hurt us? Would I begin to teach him brotherhood at that moment? I don’t think so. I would do whatever it takes at that moment to protect myself and my family even if it means killing the violent person. Would I feel guilt for doing that? More likely not. I may be traumatized by the incident but there would be reasonable justification within me that the retaliation was needed at the moment. 

Let’s now consider the situation where this intruder took me by surprise, hurt me physically but left me alive, robbed my home, hurt my family, killed one or more of them and then escaped. How would I react? Would I follow him frantically? The immediate aftermath would be a sense of extreme shock and trauma. This overlapping with the necessity of practical action towards getting medical help for an injured family member, reporting the incident to police and other formalities. There would be extreme feeling of grief over loss of life of a dear one and extreme rage. The grief may be easier to overcome for me than the rage. It is the rage that would provoke and push me to an edge to initiate further action. What direction I allow myself to go under the pressure of that rage will depend on my internal battle. 

I can foresee that this will not be an easy battle. It will make me take a fresh look at my understanding of God and God’s teachings. It will vigorously jerk my understanding of my surrender to God. What this means is that I would intensely question my intellectual leanings towards action in response to the incident. Am I leaning towards finding the perpetrator and taking into my hands to punish him and do what he did to my family and me? Would I turn the world upside down till the justice system finds and punishes the culprit? Or would I coax myself into returning back to my normal self without pursuing either of the two previous options? Would fear or personal hardship be a driving factor for not rooting for justice? I don’t think that would be the defining factor. If I manage to subdue the forceful inclination to seek justice and manage to settle back into my ordinary state of being, I may just go back to daily duties like before, slowly forgiving the offender from my side, leaving him to get the results of his karma from the universe at whatever time and not have any personal involvement in it. A thought that would arise in my mind, one that would be important but not dominant, is a consideration of what my actions would send a message to my kids. Now that both kids are adults, I consider them individually responsible for consciously choosing what to learn or unlearn from my actions. Although my action would not be dominated entirely by consideration of its impact on them, it would certainly be influenced by conscious precaution to not do anything that would set a dangerous precedent for wrong behavior. There is a fine line here between my personal responsibility towards them and their personal responsibility to learn or not learn from my actions. 

That brings me to the issue of what God means to me at this stage in life. What I have understood from my study of the scriptures( mainly the Bhagwad Gita and Upanishads) is that God is the eternal principle that pervades all creation, both living and inanimate. This subtlest of subtle principle is neither born nor dies nor ever undergoes change. It is the source of all creation and the place where all creation returns upon dissolution. In theory this is perfectly clear to me.

But the recent incidents made me take another look at this understanding. At a practical level what does God mean to me? Does nation equate to God? Does daily duty equate to God? Does honesty equate to God? Does kindness equate to God? Does justice equate to God? Does non violence in its absolute form equate to God? Does personal religion, ie being a Hindu or a Brahmin, equate to God? Adhering to which of these concepts would mean being loyal to God? Pondering over these questions brought more clarity for me. All of these are important. But none of these by themselves define God. God is all of these and none of these at the same time. The two cardinal defining characteristics of Gods that I understand are Truth and Lack of Hatred! Truth is defined as lack of falsehood. And Lack of Hatred vaguely translates into Love. But the term Love can be misconstrued, hence lack of hatred is a better description. A third characteristic that I find in my understanding of God is an inherent softness. This can again translate into compassion, kindness, forgiveness, love. But I did not include it with the cardinal two characteristics because God is also firm with administering justice. Mankind may forgive but the kingdom of God renders justice at all costs. Law and order in the Kingdom of God are absolute, thus inflexible and not maneuverable like in human societies. Therefore softness and firmness coexist and a human brain can find it difficult to reconcile. Perhaps an example to help understand this concept is let’s say a person who has killed a few people faces punishment in the world and begs forgiveness from God. In that moment of remorse he may find a road to salvation but only after he has served the punishment for his previous deeds. Those deeds are not excused. God will accept him without judging and give him a chance to reform but the man must pay off the debts of previous actions and begin to accrue merit with new actions. 

Having said that, devotion to God for me is much simplified. My God is where there is no falsehood in thought or action, and where there is no hate. My each day will be guided by these simple rules. There is no restriction or definition on how I worship, how I pray, how I show my allegiance to my people or country, under what circumstances I inflict injury upon anyone or how I choose to respond to someone else. My actions and self control will be guided by these two simple rules. 

I have no expectation that anyone else will follow the same rules or see God in the same light as me. God may mean something else and appear differently to others. That’s how it is and I must accept it. Only my thoughts and actions are my responsibility. My actions are what I will pay for. And I think I am ready for that. 

Staying silent when my words are not needed in the noise of the world is a perfectly reasonable choice. Saying something when I feel it may make a difference is perfectly fine too. Not needing to explain in either situation is something I’m still coming to terms with. Knowing the surroundings and sensing their readiness for change is an acquired acumen which is still work in progress. Being ever available to learn from the surroundings is also an acquired behavioral change. Chaos becomes a fodder for seeking clarity. And clarity in turn becomes a solution to get out of the chaos. 

To all the people, who in the name of religion are driven by hate to take the law in their hands and declare their loyalty to God or nation, may they find peace and happiness at some point, may they come face to face with the God of their imagination. πŸ™πŸΌπŸ™πŸΌ


Saree is a silk cotton Venkatgiri. 

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