Gods and Godmen of India (18 page)
You cannot see or touch God; you cannot take His snapshot. But there are other phenomena which you also cannot see, touch or photograph whose existence you nevertheless accept. You cannot see the air or electronic waves and yet you can record the velocity of air and receive sounds emitted by electronic waves on your radio and television. Like other invisible phenomena the existence of God can be established by scientific experiment, reasoning and above all by experience. You cannot see or touch your mind, but you know it is there. You cannot see or touch your mother’s mind but you know her love for you is there. Similarly you can know that God exists by using any one or all three methods – the scientific, the logical and the pragmatic.
Colonel Pak maintained that it is not the role of science to prove the existence of God because science deals with matter and God is not matter. Matter has been broken down by scientists into particles, sub-particles, atoms, molecules – till nothing of matter remains except energy. Scientists believe in cause and effect and in the existence of a primal or first cause from which everything else follows. Einstein established that matter and energy are intraconvertible. When asked about the spirit, he said that it was not for scientists but for philosophers to answer questions about the spirit. Colonel Pak argued that all objects must have purpose and necessity; the universe was made by somebody who had purpose and design. It did not come about by an accident and therefore the power that made it must have had a purpose in doing so and the will to project itself. This was the cosmic mind which existed before creation. That cosmic mind is God.
I found Colonel Pak plausible but came away as firm in my agnosticism as I ever was.
24/7/83
I
had my first lesson in meditation when I was quarantined at Palam. My guru was a very unusual person: an attractive but somewhat garrulous socialite oozing with goodwill: she looked more like a matronly cocktail circuit butterfly than a
dhyan yogin.
However, she had ‘seen the light’ and was willing to drive all the way to the airport on a hot and sultry afternoon to minister to my agitated soul and bring me peace of mind. It didn’t seem much persuasion on her part for me to give meditation a trial.
Kanta Advani was not the same person I had met in Delhi’s dinner parties and played golf with; in her new incarnation she was draped in a saffron coloured sari and had a
rudraksh mala
bearing Acharya Rajneesh’s picture dangling between her ample bosom. The attire of enunciation only enhanced her earthy attractiveness. “Are you ready for your first lesson?” she asked me.
I nodded. She gave me a short introductory talk on the mortality of the body and the immortality of the soul, the necessity of detaching the two by concentrating on breathing as if it had nothing to do with my body: the body depends on the breath to survive, not vice versa. Breath is made of the soul-substance which is immortal. Hence the first thing to do is to regulate breathing; the second to empty the mind of all thoughts.
It made some dim sense to me. So I nodded again. “Okay then, let’s start,” said Kanta. “First we must shut out the light. This is better done in the dark.” As she proceeded to draw the curtains across the windows she noticed my uneasiness. “Don’t worry, I won’t do anything to you,” she smiled. I responded with a nervous laugh. “We must sit close to each other so I can pass my vibes to you,” she said as she sat down facing me with our knees in close contact. “Give me your hands.”
I placed my limp hands in hers. “Breathe slowly. Concentrate on your breathing. Think of nothing else.”
I proved to be a very inept pupil. She sensed that I was not relaxed. “Have you emptied your mind of all thought? Or, are you worried about something?” she asked me. I replied quite honestly, “I was thinking that if my wife walked in and saw me holding hands with an attractive girl in the dark, no amount of explaining that this was a yoga lesson would appease her wrath.”
We decided that the next session will be beyond the reach of either her husband or my wife.
17/7/83
Sankaracharya versus the Mother
S
wami Nischalananda Saraswati, Sankaracharya of Puri, has accused Mother Teresa of converting Hindus to Christianity “in the name of
manas seva
– service to humanity”. Mother Teresa has refrained from replying to his charges and said, “I will pray for him.”
I will take upon myself to answer Sankaracharya’s allegations against Mother Teresa and ask him a few questions in return. He alleged that while travelling through West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Arunachal and Nagaland (he should have added Mizoram to his list), he saw evidence of the Mother Teresa spending “lakhs of rupees to convert people and build churches. But people have now gauged her motive.” It is true that large numbers of tribals in these areas are Christians but they embraced Christianity long before Mother Teresa appeared on the scene. The Sankaracharya is perhaps not aware that there are many denominations in Christianity. Mother Teresa is a Roman Catholic. Most of the converts in these States are Baptists, Methodists, Anglicans or Seventh Day Adventists. If Mother Teresa has to convert anyone she would make them Roman Catholics. I throw an open challenge to the Sankaracharya to name one individual who was converted to Christianity by Mother Teresa. What the Sankaracharya has alleged is a palpable lie.
Let the Sankaracharya ponder over the question why so many tribals convert to Christianity. Orthodox Hindus of his kind treat them as untouchables and they feel happier in communities which assure them more self-respect. There is also no truth in his allegation that non-Christians have to get visas to go to Nagaland and are not allowed to preach. I have been to Nagaland as other Indian citizens do and found that there are a substantial number of Nagas who remain animists. There is nothing to prevent anyone preaching his faith in Nagaland.
What the Sankaracharya and others of his way of thinking are not willing to face is that while Christian mission engage in social service of which Mother Teresa is the supreme example, no other religious organization – Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh – comes to work among the destitute, distressed and the discriminated against. Naturally quite a few people turn to Christianity as their last refuge. The Sankaracharya is not aware that many Hindus give generously to institutions set up by Mother Teresa in preference to giving donations to Hindu, Muslim or Sikh organizations, because they feel their money will be honestly and well-spent.
If our self-styled
Jagadgurus
woke up to their responsibilities towards their flock, there would be less desertions to other faiths. They are known to support the caste system and the venerable Saint of Puri went on record two years ago stating that women had no right to recite the Vedas. What kind of veneration do they expect from the people?
4/11/95
I
have just finished reading a book on the Hare Krishna movement. I found it very disturbing because it made me think of other religious movements which, likewise, started to tackle the evils of society and then floundered soon after the death of their founders. In almost every case the cause of dissension between the followers was money.
There were a few exceptions like Sikhism which saw a succession of ten gurus. It narrowly escaped going on the rocks as rivals laid claim to guruship and their tax collectors (
masands
) mulcted followers for money. In the end the last Guru, Gobind Singh, had no option but to call a halt to the succession of gurus and vest guruship in the entire
panth.
However, he only succeeded in ending guruship, not the evils that money generates. Gurudwaras became dens of corruption.
Mahants
and
jathedars
fought over their control for no other reason than grabbing offerings made by worshippers. We see the spectacles in all its sordidness in the squabbles over the control of the SGPC which has an annual budget of over Rs 12 crore and the wranglings between
jathedars
to preside over the
takhts
(thrones).
Take a look at the reform movements of recent years like that of the Radha Soamis, Acharya (
Bhagwan
) Rajneesh’s and Prabhupada’s International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). The Radha Soami movement started in Agra. It spread to the Punjab where a separate sect with a guru of its own was established in Beas. Then the Beas sect split and there is a third Radha Soami camp.
Rajneesh is very much alive. He made an enormous amount of money (a fleet of 99 Rolls Royces), a township named after him, Rajneeshpuram. And much else. Squabbles between his followers started right under his nose. No moral principles were involved, only money.
The most sordid of all these tables of religious degeneration is that of ISKCON. Its founder, Abhay De, flopped in his business ventures, abandoned his wife and five children to become a missionary for Lord Krishna. He spent eleven years in Vrindavan, took
sanyas,
changed his name to Prabhupada and decided to spread the gospel of the
Gita
in the United States.
Mrs Sumati Morarji, Chairman of Scindia Steam Navigation Company, gave him free berth on one of her many ships. Prabhupada arrived in New York in the summer of 1965 with no more than the clothes he wore, a battered typewriter and a few rupees worth of dollars. By the time he died, eleven years later, he had raised a chain of marble and gold temples in twelve countries of Asia, Europe and the United States. The total assets of ISKCON were almost a billion dollars.
Prabhupada named eleven of his disciples to look after temples and devotees in different regions. Instead of carrying on the mission, most of these
acharyas
grabbed whatever they could lay their hands on (one ate out of a gold plate and drank out of a gold goblet) and treated their followers like slaves. Since a fair number of them came from broken homes, had been drug addicts and had criminal records, they went back to the way of life they had been accustomed to. Quite a few of them are in jail. The Krishna Consciousness Movement has almost ceased to exist.
What lessons can we learn from the fates of such reform movements? First is that money corrupts men as well as institutions. And second, that men or women who preach religion should set an example by practising what they preach and refuse either to own property or have control over it. In short, money and religion don’t mix. It is easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than preach morality from a pulpit.
8/1/89
The Love-preaching Spiritualists Who Can’t Stand Rivals
A
though professedly an agnostic I go out of my way to meet men and women who claim to have divinity and are worshipped by thousands as incarnations of the Divine. Last month two of them were in Delhi: Yogi Harbhajan Singh Khalsa who carried the torch of Sikhism to the US and Her Holiness Mata Nirmala Devi who has a worldwide following as a teacher of
Sahaj
Yoga.
Yogi Harbhajan had the red carpet laid out for him at Chandigarh, Amritsar and Delhi where Gyani Zail Singh gave a tea reception for him. He also presided over an award giving function at the Chelmsford Club. I did not get to meet Yogiji in Delhi but had the privilege of meeting him twice in Washington three years ago at dinner and lunch. I also visited one of his communes in the suburbs of the Capital.
I attended a much advertised press conference of Mata Nirmala Devi in Hotel Meridien and had two private sessions with her. I do not pretend to understand Yoga expect as a form of therapy for physical and mental fitness: the Kundalini means nothing to me nor the various methods presented to rouse it to supreme heights. To me it is a lot of hocus-pocus.
The most disturbing thing about godmen and godwomen is that while they preach love towards humanity, they have nothing kind to say about each other. They talk as rivals in the god business: what they sell is the genuine stuff, what their rivals sell is spurious. Having met these two I was amused to read what Acharya Rajneesh (Osho) had to say about them and Swami Muktanandji in his book
The Goose is Out
First about Mata Nirmala Devi.
“One of my disciples, Nirmala Srivastava, has now become a spiritual leader. Now her name is long: Her Holiness Jagatjanani (the mother of the whole world) Mataji Nirmalaji Srivastavaji.
“She was once travelling with me in a car, and I passed by Muktananda’s ashram. The people staying in Muktananda’s ashram invited me to be there for a five-minute stay, just to take a cup of tea. And it was a long journey so I said, There is no harm in it.’ Anyway I love a cup of tea! So I stayed for five minutes.
“Nirmala saw Muktananda. She could not believe that this stupid-looking man – disgusting, more or less a buffoon – had become a great spiritual leader. After the tea, when we re-entered the car she said, ‘If this man can become a spiritual leader, then why can’t I?’
“I said, ‘You can.’ And she has become one.
“There is one man here from Australia who asked me a question ‘What do you think about Mataji Nirmala Deviji?’
“I know her perfectly well – for 10 years she was my student. There is nothing in it, no spirituality, no meditativeness … but she got the idea from Muktananda. And it is not the only case.”
Yogi Harbhajan Khalsa comes in for rougher treatment from the acerbic tongued Osho:
“You must have heard the name of a great sardar yogi in America, Yogi Bhajan. He was just a porter at Delhi airport. He saw Muktananda coming with 700 Americans … Of course at that time his name was Sardar Harbhajan Singh; he was a poor porter, but certainly he looked far better than Muktananda, more impressive. The idea came into his mind, If this fool can be a
paramahansa,
a
satguru,
etc., etc., then why should I waste my time just being a porter?’ He dropped the job, went to America, and is now the greatest spiritual leader of the Sikh hierarchy in the Western hemisphere.