Theology trouble.......

I have had an experience in the last few days that I find a bit difficult to analyse and digest. I have just finished reading a book titled “Death of a Guru” written by Rabindranath Maharaj. It is supposed to be an autobiography of a person born into a staunch Brahmin family in Trinidad who eventually becomes a Christian pastor. Well, religion always being a contentious issue is a tricky conversation to make or write about. We all have our loyalties to the religion we endorse and in a way show our unquestioned faith and dedication to it. And this emotion is fine with me and it is absolutely understandable. Here I am writing this blog purely based on what I thought about the book and the presentation of its facts and content.

The author first writes about his rise to being a pundit as early as 11 years of age and how people would bow down to him and touch his feet and give him money. He then writes about the caste system and all the popular history that come attached with Hinduism. He mentions that he practiced yoga and meditation everyday to bring him closer to god. Then the book shifts gear to how he picked up smoking and how violent he had become all of a sudden. He speaks about how certain gods like Shiva and Kali brought a chill down his spine, and an incident where the cow he had worshipped for a long time as god had attacked him. The first half of the book where he is hindu is filled with negativity and dark shades.
Then he and his family endorse Christianity and things started falling in place. He miraculously got some money to go to England and his grandmother was cured of arthritis that she had suffered for more than a couple of decades. The transformation from not being able to walk to actually able to squat without support was seen only in a matter of weeks! He recounts enormous number of such case reports that has proven beneficial to him, the highlight being him quitting smoking overnight and him getting through a spinal surgery.

He then becomes a pastor and travels around the world; most of his time spent in criticising Hinduism than promoting his new found faith. He also claims that he had cured a girl of an untreatable blood disease (HIV) through religion. Since Christianity does not have a restriction on eating meat, he attributes it to his improving health which could Hinduism could not provide.He blames eastern religious influences like Hinduism and Buddhism to being the cause of the increase in drug users in western countries. He equates the experience of practicing yoga and meditation to being the same as using addictive drugs like LSD. He also goes to the extent of ridiculing certain hindu gods like Ganesha for possessing an elephant head and the violent nature of Shiva, the destroyer of the evil. He then finds Hinduism as the root cause for India’s problems of poverty and underdevelopment. He criticises great saints and personalities like Swami Vivekananda, Dalai Lama and some eastern missionaries to be the cause of misery, drug abuse and to the growing popularity of yoga and meditation, in his opinion the greatest trap of the east in the western world. The opinions and the innumerable personal examples provided here seem so contrived that it is hard for any sane person to believe.

It is one’s personal choice as to which religion he or she wants to follow. But the point I am trying to make is; promote a religion based on its positives and not by criticising the others that are around. If one has the ability to analyse other religions, then do it ethically and not through concoction of stories packaged as facts. India today is one of the world’s greatest emerging economies with a large mix of different religions in its population. Religion and development have little relation and it is outright idiocy to state that a certain religion has a negative effect on its economic progress.

There have been social and political revolutions that have taken place against certain practices of Hinduism like in the 12th century lead by Basaveshwara and by Swami Vivekananda in the 19th century. This is a phase that religions go through leading to its metamorphosis and its ever-changing interpretation to suit the prevailing social and intellectual ability of its followers. Hinduism and Buddhism are very different today, unlike the way described in this book which is very dark and unethical in its criticism.

The author tries to salvage credibility to his book by saying that he has been a guest speaker in universities like Harvard and Oxford. Making a speech in Harvard, if it is true at all, which I really doubt, does not justify the book’s unethical and blasphemous nature. I need not remind my readers about the beneficial effects of yoga and meditation that now have scientific backing to them. Choosing to use drugs of abusive nature is the prerogative of the individual and he has to deal with the consequences of making a lethal and unlawful choice. He criticises gurus of the east for accumulating vast amounts of money. But I think the Vatican is the richest religious place on earth!! The author himself now lives in Switzerland in a comfortable country home like the loads of other Christian preachers who own private jets. Flimsy arguments like these he poses in the book, and mine that counter them is a list that could see no end. It is not about who is right or who is not; it is just a matter of secular co-existence. Every religion has its positives and negatives, and the big picture lies in relating to a higher cosmic power that we call god, be it any form or conception. The bottom line is to keep away from controversy by not touching the livewire called religious sentiment.

Publisher: “your last book was a total failure and we are thinking of not renewing your contract”
Failed author: “my next book will be a mega seller for sure”
Publisher: “what are you writing on?”
Failed author: "Panacea to untreatable diseases, Religion". I will feature some (not so) real examples in it”

Gold greedy gurus........

The one thing that is on everyone’s lips is the talk about the global financial crisis. The subject dominates conversations in coffee shops to taverns. It is the intellectuals to the school drop outs; everyone has a theory and an opinion about it. How I wished the fund managers and financial advisors had talked and analysed it as much as the general public are doing now!
I was invariably a part of this conversation a few days back. I was sitting there and trying to make sense of all the financial jargon that sprung up like jacks in boxes all around me. I should say that it overwhelmed me pretty badly and left me struck by lightning. I could not make too much sense of all the numerical bombardment. But who should be blamed? The self proclaimed smarties that had held top decision making posts in banks? Or the greedy investment firms occupying expensive real estate in New York City, who think they set financial trends for everyone to follow? Or is it the average dude on the road with no job trying to buy holiday homes?

We were then living in good times. Oil was cheap and people had a lot more to spend. Everyone had extra cash to spend and people were happy. But then, the greed to acquire more kicked in. So the banks came up with this brilliant idea of stated income, verified assets (SIVA) where in where in one has to just state his income and not to bother about proving it and he is sanctioned a loan. Then another bank came up with No income, verified assets (NIVA) where one need not have any income at all, but will still manage to get a loan. Believe me guys, I could relate to SIVA and let it pass by being ultra liberal with my internal ethical instincts, but NIVA was totally unacceptable. But then some Ivy League MBA comes up with the idea of No Income, No Assets (NINA). You don’t have to have job, nor the need to have any assets. Yeah! Who else would like to take a loan would you ask?
What is the logic behind these schemes? Put a person under an obligation he cannot fulfil, promise him a better life and charge him the sky for the loan. Now every bank knew that this was a risky affair. So they sliced up the risks and packaged it to look like a very safe investment with a nexus with credit rating agencies. So the big boys on Wall Street decided to buy these “investments” thinking that it would generate revenue. The insurance companies did not want be left out of the bandwagon. The big boys insured all these so called dream investments with them and the insurance companies were more happy to do so. Higher premiums! All they eventually did was buy liabilities that were labelled as profit making means. The bubble eventually burst and the rest is history.
But one startling revelation here is that all these financial institutions dared to gamble with the money of the people who trusted them to safeguard it. The heads and directors made a fortune while the average investor is left in lurch.
The greed to have everything for oneself has led these people to make decisions that were eventually detrimental to global economics. And the world is left in jitters because a handful of individuals played a dirty unethical game. Fed by this sentiment of material pleasures, the guy next door goes absolutely beyond his financial means to lead a life of luxury and splurge. So everyone has his part in this broth gone wrong. The root cause for all this mess is human greed and I reckon you will agree with me. Greed was a human emotion that was underestimated isn’t it? Well, it’s hard not to recognise it now!