Musings of a Free Mind

By V.V. Rampal

In the present technology-oriented environment, expectations, material achievements and desire for comforts has made life move away from human values and social concern. This book tries to strike a balance between the scientific way of life and the ethical aspects that need to counter the negative tendencies. It further emphasizes through thoughts expressed mostly in dialogue and story form, the need to humanize life in the mad rush of materialism. The ideas are without any bias for, or against, any established view of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9789352061563

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Hospital

Chapter 1

FACING INJUSTICE WITH VIRTUE

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He was given to day dreaming. He had reached an age when life did not offer much by way of excitement. The temptation had faded and a strange sense of satisfaction had descended which made life devoid of young desires. There was no exuberance of the youth, no playfulness of the childhood or the expectations of the middle age. The unevenness of life had flattened to a smooth and dull road that offered no challenges to the traveler. The lack of physical energy, however, was compensated to some extent by a renewed mental activity that largely involved wanderings into past and future. Dreaming became increasingly a part of life. It kept the mind engaged harmlessly. There were dreams in which suppressed desires became reality and gave a feeling of satisfaction. There were expectations that brought hope and temptations that disturbed tranquility. His dreaming hours extended from normal sleep into the waking hours. This helped him to spend his hours alone and undisturbed, without causing inconvenience or unnecessary disturbance to any of his relatives and acquaintances. He lived in his own world of past achievements, frustrations and unfulfilled desires that crowded his mind in sleep and wakefulness in the dreamy state.

On a hot summer day he was lying with his eyes open but not awake since his thoughts were elsewhere. He was thinking whether it is really practicable to live a life of virtue in a world that is full of cut-throat competition and hard-to-survive situations. Slowly his eyes seemed to close and he went in a reverie. He saw himself walking on a lonely road that meandered through a lush green valley. He found the scenic environment soothing enough to calm his nerves that were tense with the thought of nature doing injustice to the innocent ones through earthquakes and tsunamis. He was preoccupied with the thought of people bullying and harming innocent persons inside and outside the temples of justice. He was not able to decide what caused this apparently inexplicable phenomenon; whether it was past karma, or destiny, as some liked to put it, or was it sheer incompetence on the part of innocents to cope with the reality of the material world that was infested with wrong doers. He himself had suffered great injustice in his life, and also knew some others in his inner circle that had gone through similar experience of injustice. He also knew that some decent people, virtuous and law-abiding, had suffered at the hands of the cruel and unkind who took pride in scoring points against those who stood up against wrong doing and injustice.

As his mind settled after moving a few steps in the heavenly environment of the green valley, he wished to forget the duality of right and wrong, good and bad, and justice and injustice as it applied to worldly people. He only hoped that a superior force looks after such things. Though he did not believe in the karma theory, he thought it to be the only explanation that satisfied the gullible and those having faith in rebirth.

Soon his dream took on the form of a real experience when a voice in the background called him by his name and asked how he was. He was surprised to see his friend of school days coming before him and greeting him in the valley.

‘How do you happen to be here in this lonely stretch because I know you are not the out-going type’ he said. ‘That’s not true; for even the introverted ones seek fresh air to brighten their minds’ he replied. ‘That may be true, but I find you still morose and wearing a sad look in this soul lifting environment’, his friend added. He then elaborated, ‘it is because recently I came across certain incidents that saddened me immensely. I saw injustice ruling without fear in this land. It has shaken my confidence in the goodness of people and jolted me out of the b elief in the rule of law. I have begun to doubt the principle of divine justice. The good ones are being manipulated and maneuvered by the sharp and cunning into situations that make their life difficult for no fault of theirs. Is it sheer destiny, I wonder; for they seem to obey every law and regulation of the social and religious commandments and yet they suffer to no end?’

Though he tried to convey his feelings with emotion, his words could explain the situation only cursorily; his hurt was deep and demanded a convincing explanation. He was no longer sure whether virtue was to be practiced against the cunning, the unkind, the cruel and the self-serving opponents. To his surprise however, his friend read the hurt behind his words and said,’ tell me what exactly happened and I shall be able to express my views.’ To this he replied, ‘ an honest decent man saved public money by exposing the machinations of a corrupt syndicate but the syndicate managed to involve the honest man in a false court case and put his job in jeopardy. Should that man leave it to his fate or fight the injustice? Is the virtuous man, who is a friend of mine, still believes in the goodness of man and forget about the wrong done to him?’

The friend then replied,’ this happens quite frequently in this world of powerful people, people who get wealth and power by wrong means and use it often wrongly to serve their ends. Though it is unfair and unjust, the solutions lie in fighting it through right methods and not adopt wrong tactics in the spirit of tit for tat. A virtuous man will resort to forgiveness towards the wrong doer and fight following the rules of right living even at the cost of self damage. There are three ways to face injustice. One is to react angrily in the spirit of revenge and adopt all means right or wrong to get even with the wrong doer. This is the way of the world, a common practice among the people who are neither religious nor spiritually inclined to leave it to the superior forces of divine justice. The other method, followed by the religious and the spiritually inclined, or sometimes by those who have no resources to fight, is to leave the matter on God’s dispensation and hope for divine justice. This is seen by most worldly people as a sign of weakness and even cowardice. The third method is to fight injustice by right methods and not with any sense of vengeance. This is the most difficult but the right way to oppose injustice. It takes time, money and effort, and a lot of courage to move ahead. This is the way of the virtuous. One need not be religious or God dependent to be virtuous. Anyone who believes in human values can adopt this method. It is a way of the courageous and the right thinking people. What is required is a faith in the right living and right thinking and to act hopefully for the best to happen.

He seemed to agree and said,’ you imply that virtue when faced with injustice must fight it with courage but not resort to hatred or revenge. Even though forgiving the unjust and leaving the matter to God may be a solution for some spiritually inclined persons, this may encourage the wrong doers who do not believe in the divine justice and are likely to misuse the system to oppress others. Virtue essentially lies in thinking right and doing right without fear or favor. Virtue does not mean submissive weakness towards the oppressor. I hope I have understood your point correctly.’

‘yes that is what I meant,’ said the friend and added,’ now I hope you will improve your mood and enjoy the beautiful view of this valley that is so inspiring and mood lifting. Anger and frustration only damage us. The wrong doers serve their purpose by inflicting these emotions on us. We should not let them do so’.

Soon the day dreamer got a push by one of the family members and thus ended his enlightening dream.

IS GOD KIND AND MERCIFUL?

Ravi lived in the land of Alaknanda and Mandakini. The nature had blessed this region with its most beautiful sights, the hills, the valleys, the fast moving and meandering rivers descending from heavenly heights to levels of human habitation, the green trees and multicolored flowers, the unpolluted air and a serene environment worthy of gods. The sages had praised and written about it. They had authored volumes of spiritual literature in this land of gods. People made a pilgrimage to their abodes and derived spiritual solace by just being in this environment. Every year hundreds of thousands visited this land and came back spiritually renewed and religiously elevated.

But one day, nature became furious. It poured its reserves of rain in a short spell of two days, bursting clouds and causing devastation all around. Houses were washed away and rivers over flowed their banks as if the lord of hills had decided to go for the dance of destruction. In a matter of hours the bustling places of human activity became fields of corpses. There was destruction all around, roads vanished overnight and people were left to fend for themselves. It was as if God had decided to show its anger to one and all, making everybody wonder whether God was indeed merciful. Ravi too thought that his assumption of God being merciful was indeed doubtful. The faithful became skeptics and religious belief took a beating.

In this environment of doubt and disbelief, a sadhu was seen meditating, unconcerned with death and destruction all around. Ravi saw him and decided to ask him what god he was praying to. Was it the same god that had caused all this destruction? Did he deserve to be prayed to? He went to that sadhu and said, ‘sir, do you not see the cruelty of your God who has inflicted so much pain and misery on thousands of innocent people? Do you still think He is merciful, kind and generous? How can I, an innocent sufferer, accept the flattering qualities of your God?

The sadhu opened his eyes, smiled on Ravi, and in a soothing voice said,’ my dear boy, God is neither cruel nor kind. It is your thoughts about Him that make Him so. Come and sit down beside me and I shall tell you whether God is merciful or unkind.’ He then elaborated as follows:

‘Most religions believe that God is merciful but some persons question this belief by saying that how can it be so when in the world created by him one species survives by feeding on the other, innocents suffer while wrong doers flourish, children die of incurable diseases and nature’s fury causes thousands of innocents to die unnaturally. For those who do not believe in rebirth, the explanation provided by karma theory does not satisfy.

Vedanta provides an answer by saying that the problem arises because of our assumption that God is some kind of superman and that He has qualities like mercy, cruelty etc that are assigned to a living body like ours. When we talk of God, we merely elevate our existence to limitless dimensions, power and intelligence and call it God. We keep in him our image of a superman and respect and fear him for that purpose. But according to Vedanta, this is an erroneous assumption.

Vedanta asserts that Brahmn, the Reality, is nirgun or quality less. It is only the consciousness of just being and no adjectives or qualities define this reality. In fact, whatever quality you think of, leave alone mercy, justice or any other, the quality does not apply to that entity. Therefore, if the reality is seen as God, as is done in most religions, we are actually seeing that reality as an extension of our selves when we assign qualities to that. The primary difficulty lies in understanding the true nature of God.

Saints and mystics have often said that God’s ways are beyond human intelligence to understand and appreciate. It is said that ‘teri gat mat tu hi jane’ meaning thereby that God’s intentions and works only God knows. It is beyond our capability to understand and analyze the doings of God. We cannot even rationalize the happenings in nature. The forces of nature are neither kind nor cruel. It depends only on our experience how we see them. Sunlight is neither kind in winter nor cruel in summer. It is not the fault of sunlight if it scorches us in midsummer. At the same time, life will be impossible without it.

We are part of the system called universe. As part of it, we are not justified in passing judgment on the creator of this system. To a deer, the presence of lion is unjust to its life. But to the lion, the creator has mercifully provided a means for its survival. It is the way we look at our personal interest that forms and justifies our opinion. To a vegetarian, the plant life is a boon and so is the lower animal life to the carnivorous. We think God is merciful in providing fruits and vegetables for us, but to the living plant life we are the killers created by God.

It is our perspective of this world, in relation to our interest for survival and growth, which determines our assigning qualities to the creator. When this world meets our demands, we think God is merciful to us. But when natural calamities like earthquakes, volcanoes and tornadoes destroy our interests, we curse God and attribute motives to the contrary to Him. We justify our anger towards Him by saying that probably he meant us harm to teach us a lesson. We never think from the perspective of the designer of the system. We know that had volcanoes and earthquakes in the past not happened, we would not have got the earth for our use as we are having it today. We would not have got the oil that sustains us today. When the river outflows its banks in rainy season, we see it as a calamity, but we forget that it brings fresh soil for cultivation of crops. It is the difference in our self-oriented perspective and the universal interest of the creator that we often confuse and put motives to the nature of God. He is merciful to every species because He has provided a food chain even to the vegetarians and carnivorous by providing means for survival and growth. The food chain must be viewed in perspective of equilibrium in nature, keeping a balance of species so that no one species predominates in number to the detriment of others. Unfortunately man, with his intelligence, has spoilt this balance. God is seen cruel when He adjusts and tweaks the system by bringing changes that affect our comfortable life.

The Reality, not the God of religions, has only created a super self regulating and self sustaining system that is neither merciful nor cruel. It is only our perception based on our understanding of this quality less creator that makes it merciful or cruel. We view it from our self interest. He is equally merciful to the deer by providing grass and to the lion by providing the deer. It is only the deer or the lion who may judge Him based on their respective interest. But their opinions do not affect the motive of the creator who is essentially unconcerned as to how we describe Him. It is like a part of the machine passing judgment on the nature of the designer. In the scheme of nature, we are just one species of the animal life and hardly in a position to judge His motives.

Let me conclude by saying that God is neither kind nor cruel for we do not exactly know it’s true nature. Nirgun (quality less) cannot be described qualitatively. We can only put qualities to it based on our experience with it. The Absolute Reality is beyond description, leave alone attaching qualities to it. Divine Intelligence starts where human intelligence ends.’

Ravi gave a thought to what he heard and came back wiser.

TURNING HUMANS INTO GOD

Let us not turn decent, intelligent, useful persons into gods by assigning magical or miraculous powers to them out of respect for them. People are respected and believed when they act like human beings. When we turn them into gods, they become mythical and unbelievable. As humans, we expect our heroes to be godlike but we associate with them more closely if we treat them as humans with plus and minus points. It is our habit to lift the sages and seers to the pedestal of godhood. But then they become mythical figures and go out of our domain of human interest at worldly level. We spin stories about them and imagine them to have supernatural powers. But I think it is an error on our part. We must value their contributions to society as great human beings who brought knowledge and wisdom and benefited the society. By turning them into gods, we move them away from our daily life and encase them as objects of worship rather than as living beings to be consulted.

THE PLACE OF SPIRITUAL TEACHER IN THE LIFE OF A SPIRITUAL ASPIRANT

In everyday life, devoid of spiritual activity, our ego is the pillar of our support to which we cling in order to grow and achieve. However, in spiritual pursuit, we tend to rise above ego and hence neglect this support. This creates a vacuum that can be problematic to our mental stability. We lose an anchor