The Call of the Divine: A Shared Journey and A Fellowship of Souls

By Raja Arasa Ratnam

An ardent temple-goer during his boyhood in British Malaya, following his studies in Australia, the author eventually adopted a spiritual approach to God, through Hinduism’s Upanishads.

His diverse academic exposure and wide-ranging reading, and his books on bridging cross-cultural differences led him to be described by a professor (one of his many academic supporters) as “an intellectual who cannot be categorised”. His book on Australian society brought forth this assessment: “There is wisdom here”.
In a Western society whose ethos is individualism, he is a communitarian. Politically a swinging voter, and an understanding freethinker about religion (“All religions are equal in their potential”), he enjoys a recluse life (understandable in a nonagenarian), spending significant time in contemplation of the Divine.

Recognising that one’s relationship with God is personal and private, he denies a role for institutional religions as relevant intermediaries. Instead, he prefers un-corporatised priests, like the shamans of old, and the Hindu priests of his youth, to guide those individuals who seek succour from the vicissitudes of life; as well as to offer hope for others of a more meaningful Earthly existence.

He believes that priests should offer faith, without seeking control or dominance over the lives of others. Exercising political influence over a government to force non-believers to abide by a particular theology is not consistent with the philosophies of the great religious teachers of mankind; it is also not consistent with democratic, multi-ethnic, multicultural societies all over the globe.

The fulfilment of a meaningful life on Earth is surely through following a shared spiritual path traversing diverse faiths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William R. Potter
• Release date: Jul 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005269173

Raja Arasa Ratnam

I am an octogenarian bicultural Asian-Australian, formed by the communalism and spirituality of Asia, but with my feet firmly grounded in the individualism of the West. I am a communitarian small-l liberal, and a freethinker in matters religious. I seek to contribute to building a bridge between these cultures (as suggested to me by the spirit world about 2 decades ago); and have thereby been writing about issues relating to migrant integration (but not assimilation).I claim to be widely read. A professor of history and politics (a published author of renown), who treats my books as representing a sliver of post-war Australia’s history, did describe me as an intellectual who cannot be categorised (but not slippery). Two of my books were recommended in 2013 by the US Review of Books. All of my six books were reviewed favourably by senior academics and other notable persons. I am not just a pretty face!My books are all experience-based, including the book of short, short stories of imagined people and situations. Usefully, I was Director of Policy on migrant settlement-related issues over nine years in the federal public service in Australia. My highly interactive and contributory life, reaching leadership positions in civil society, also contributed to my writing, as did a demeaning life under British colonialism, a half-starved existence under a Japanese military occupation, and exposure to the White Australia-era racism, sectarian religion-fuelled tribalism, and a denial of equal opportunity.

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RELIGION – Beginnings

We are born into a religion

Almost all of those who profess to having, or believing in, a religion are born into it. Is it not the religion or faith of the family? Some exchange their religion for another later in life: it would be a well-thought out shift of allegiance, reflecting a search for a more satisfying faith or religious community.

There will be of course some who are born into a family without adherence to any religious belief, but who may subsequently join a religious sect by a considered choice. Then there are those who quietly disengage from religion, except possibly in matters relating to hatches, matches and dispatches, viz. births, marriages and deaths.

How do religious beliefs arise?

From a sense or feeling of awe about something or events so powerful, so beyond our control or understanding, so ubiquitous, more often than not very frightening, yet uplifting at times? Since our primordial emotional state is anxiety, that is, uncertainty mixed with a degree of fear about what might happen, it is only natural that we would seek to reduce our sense of trepidation or fear.

Normally, when confronted by either an ethereal or a tangible source of anxiety, one either flees or fights. When thunder and lightning, torrential rain and floods, earthquakes and tsunamis, and such like terrorised primitive Man, did he conjure up or imagine spirits of indefinable form, with malevolent intent, as causing his terror? Indeed, are not beliefs of an animist nature still held in the simpler societies in the world?

Did Early Man then also attempt to propitiate the unknown and unseen causes of his terror in some way? Did he subsequently come to conclude that propitiation can at times be effective, especially after experiencing a period of relative peace?

The Priesthoods as Intermediaries

Then did some opportunistic fellows set themselves up as competent intermediaries? That is, to intercede between the fearful and the feared – and perhaps for some small reward, price or benefit, which progressively led to control over the fearful? Was this how the shamans, the witchdoctors, the brahmins, and all other priesthoods came into being?

By interposing themselves as intermediaries able to reach fearsome spirits, and by appearing to appease them, as well as purporting to obtain guidance for the gullible, did the interlopers then extend their power by subtle threats against both unbelievers and competitors? Were shrines then constructed as places for placation? Did gifts, ostensibly to bribe the spirits (now possibly described as gods), then lead to the enrichment of the ‘priests’?

Did they then begin to conduct ceremonies of some kind to convey the dead to their resting places, to welcome the newborn to the living, and to join in marriage those wanting to create new life? Did these clever intermediaries use rituals they had devised; accompanied by allegedly explanatory mumbo-jumbo they had also concocted, to subjugate in superstition the fearful? Was this the process which engulfed not only primitive Man, but also the members of the simpler societies which subsequently developed?

My Beliefs

A succinct summary of my beliefs follows. I have been reading about religion and society since I was about 24.

At death, I would join the souls of my predecessors (except those who have been reincarnated). After a period of learning in whatever dimension I find myself, I would be reincarnated on Earth. Let me make clear that I was never taught to believe in a spirit domain from which the soul of a former relative or, for that matter, the soul of perhaps a guru, could enter my life and offer me advice. Or that those in this domain might be able to influence the direction of my life at some significant point – as has apparently happened more than once!

Moving on – each Earthly life would involve me paying for the sins of my past lives while being offered opportunities to learn to better myself morally, possibly spiritually. After many, many rebirths, I might be permitted to return to that Ocean of Consciousness from which, it is said, we had originally arisen.

The ultimate objective of this extended process? To improve the stock of human souls? So, is there meaning and purpose in human existence?

Finding Meaning in Life

The above belief would give meaning where none exists for the unbeliever. It would give more meaning than the claim that human existence has meaning but only for each Earthly existence. A concept embodying continuity through lifetimes, of opportunities to move up some moral scale life by life, of exercising free will rather than being carried blindly through time on Earth, is enticing, because it offers a path of purpose, and of hope – with free will.

A sceptic could, however, assert that this belief is akin to clutching a straw in attempting to keep afloat in mid-ocean. Pointing to a tub of water in the distance to a blind, thirsty horse doesn’t necessarily lead the horse to drink, either. Its need must be such as to enable it to sense the water, and move towards it.

The sceptic has also to overcome the evidence (limited as it may be) that reincarnation is a reality, as are experienced psychic phenomena and other paranormal occurrences. The extensive research by both American and Russian military into the latter should encourage the sceptic to keep an open mind on reincarnation, and thereby on its probable implications.

But not many people, including academic researchers, would be willing to leave the certainty of disbelief; it is certainly comforting.

Giving Away God

Turning to matters religious: as a primary school boy, I was sent to the Pilleyar (Ganesha) temple at examination times, although I topped my class by a large margin every term, except once. I also accompanied my parents at other times. We were ardent in our faith.

My father, having overcome a serious illness at about 33, died suddenly at 47, when I was 18. Within 3 years I then lost the family’s savings through a spectacular academic failure. So much for faith and fervent prayer.

My future was thereby destroyed, as clearly forewarned after my father’s demise by a perambulating yogi, but unheeded by us. I doubt that my mother and I were competent to absorb such a warning. In any event, surely what had to happen had to work itself out. Late in life I realised that what the yogi had done was to turn my mother’s vision towards Australia, which was in a direction not normally taken by students from British Malaya seeking an overseas qualification. Australia was to be the location for my exile.

My destiny led to my mother and my sisters being impoverished. So much for temple rituals and the priesthood. I gave away God, Hinduism and all religio-cultural rituals. I remember waving my fist in anger towards the sky, shouting ‘To hell with you.’ Nothing changed.

Reality Strikes

Seeing it as it is

Then learning and logic took over! Studying the belief systems of the simpler societies at my university, and dipping into some anthropology, sociology, psychology, and the major religions, I realised that there has been, and is, an innate need in many, if not most, of us to understand what we humans are, and our place in the Cosmos.

I realised further that: the complexity and beauty, as well as the observable but inadequately explicable aspects of the experienced world; the exceedingly complex patterns of inter-linked cause and effect, action and reaction, and the inter-dependencies of the physical, chemical and electromagnetic forces affecting us; the uniformity, the invariability, the predictive capacity of the laws of nature; the ecological balance between mobile and fixed forms of life; the intuitive yearning by sensitive souls for communion with sublime or higher forces not clearly understood; and the inferred influence of the spirit world, all of which affect our lives, could not have occurred purely by chance. Instead, they might, I felt, reflect the mind and soul of a Creator.

How else could all that have occurred? By chance? Is that another name for an inexplicable cause, akin to the gods of simpler people?

I did conclude, logically, that there had to be a Creator of all that exists. I then noted, with great interest, that an academic and confirmed atheist had reached the same conclusion after a lifetime of non-belief in a Creator, for exactly the same reasons. There has to be a Creator, he now accepts, thereby upsetting most severely his former fellow-believers in that causal mechanism named Chance.

Like me, he doesn’t claim to know; only that a creator god makes (unverifiable) sense.

Karma and Destiny Paths

How do I see karma? In the Hindu framework I have set out above, it reflects the confluence of reincarnation and the law of cause and effect. As we paddle as best we can on our personal rivers of life, we exercise our free will to pay our personal cosmic debts, to access any opportunities to learn whatever we need to learn for our personal development, and to prepare for the next life.

We thus effectively create, as a consequence of bumbling through life as best as possible, the cliffs through which our river of life will flow during our next sojourn on Earth, and the rocky impediments and chasms we will find on the way. How we deal with these and the cross-currents created by other personal destinies related to us will determine our future lives.

No gods, saints, or spirits are therefore necessary as determinants. However, they may be able to intrude, to help, if they choose to; presumably they too have free will. Since each of us is an integral part of a number of collectives, there will result a complex network of personal destinies.

The expected web, and possibly nested mesh, of personal destinies would presumably be reflected ultimately in tribal and possibly national destinies. These might influence species development, although a major contributor might also be genetic mutations, which are truly accidents of nature.

The Other Religions

What place is there for the major religions? Divested of the detritus of dogma deliberately designed to distinguish each sect or faith from the others, and then to enable a claim of an unwarranted theological superiority, and thereby an exclusive path to heaven, two core beliefs are shared by these religions, except Buddhism. First is a claim of a creator god. The second is that, since humans are the products of this creation, we are bonded to one another.

What a wonderful concept. It is a great pity that it seems to apply only within the boundaries of each religious sect. The others are outsiders, heretics, heathens, etc. and are therefore not going to be ‘saved.’ Thus, in the name of their god, each priesthood is likely to display or even preach prejudice towards those not under its control or influence.

There will, of course, be great exceptions – priests within each religion who are truly ecumenical (accepting related sects within their religion as non-competitive), or who are freethinkers in their tolerance, even accepting other religions as comparable paths to the one God of mankind. I have enjoyed conversing with some of these enlightened exceptions.

What of those who quite impertinently suggested that my soul would remain doomed if I did not convert to their sect? My riposte to such soul gatherers is as follows: ‘When you ascend to the Celestial Abode of the Heavenly Father, you will find yourself shaking hands with Caluthumpians and members of all the other religions.’

Regrettably, some ‘wannabe’ saviours seemed discomfited by such a vision; I have watched a few dash down the road with displeasure after receiving my good news! I wonder how atheists react on entry to this Abode.

The Quality of a Religion

A true measure of the quality of a civilisation is the way the least viable of the people are treated. This criterion, in my view, also applies to religions. On this test, the major religions, if not all of them, fail.

The life chances, the quality of life, of those at the bottom of the socio-economic pile are generally ignored by their co-religionists in power, in government. It is a great pity that it was the communist nations which provided some uplift to their peasants, lifting them from their squalor.

Our only hope is the secular nation, which subordinates saving the soul to filling an empty belly. Would it not be wonderful if individual humans were able to seek succour from their god or spirits or whatever, without being caught up within an institutional religion with all its divisive binding rules, regulations and practices, as well as its priesthood; that is, without an intermediary? This is not to deny that there are many who derive some peace of mind through their priests.

From observation, the two main groups in Australia are the elderly and the newly converted (mainly East Asians). This peace of mind, if associated with sectarian prejudice, may not however be the best ticket for entry to Heaven. Yet, the real need by the majority of humans to have some hope of alleviating their suffering as they strive merely to exist, to survive, to protect their families (especially their young), cannot be denied.

However, how could they accept that their prayers, their entreaties, are in vain; and that they need to work through their personal destinies in each life?

Do not the alleged interventions by some kind god, or the claimed miracles brought about by saints, offer (blind) hope? Should the purveyors of this hope, the middlemen, most of whom live well and in security, therefore be tolerated? If so, at what price? Yet, I will make it clear that I am not denigrating the kindness of most of those I refer to as middlemen. I continue to deal with them. They are worthy of respect.

Major Religions are Equal in Their Potential

As the foundation chairman of a primary school board way back in the 1970s, my outline of an educational program to teach young children about religion, rather than have them indoctrinated through scripture classes conducted by sectarian priests, was accepted by the teachers at the school, the Schools Authority in Canberra and the priests who had decided not to conduct scripture classes in the school (come to church, they said); yet nothing came of it. In this instance, the education bureaucracy may have had too much of a say.

Fortunately, those of us who do not seek anything from God, but merely wish to respond to that innate need to reach out to a Creator, can freely bypass an institutional intermediary. The major religions, apart from metaphysical Hinduism, have nothing meaningful to offer those of us who seek guidance as to our place in the Cosmos and its meaning. Yet, they all offer a code of ethics, based on mutual obligation derived from being co-created. Stripped down to their core message, all the major religions are equal in their potential to guide us as to how we should live with one another. Regrettably, the reality is otherwise.

I am satisfied, by a process of observation, reading, experience and logic, with the tentative conclusions I have reached about the equality of all humans and how we fit into the Cosmos. I am therefore at peace mentally and spiritually. I envisage the universal Creator or God as an amorphous essence beyond all creation.

Who is the Creator, why was creation undertaken, and what is the rationale for the product? These are meaningless questions. There seems, however, to be purpose and meaning in our lives, on Earth or elsewhere. I believe that each one of us has free will to create our personal destiny in future lives, and to overcome innate fear and taught prejudice to seek our original home, that Ocean of Consciousness.

In such a search, we are more likely to reach out to fellow humans on the road, offering respect and support, knowing that it is also the journey, not just the destination, which matters!

All Waters Return to the Sea

I embarked upon a search into the various paths to the universal Creator. It is this unending search which I touch upon below. The options available to a seeker are indeed wide. But is there a single track which might