Even as I write this I can hear the old programmed scripts of caution about the concupiscences of the flesh resulting from original sin ever so feebly playing in my head and censuring me and telling me: Stop, do not trespass, you are treading into the dangerous territory, the exclusive holy preserve of the elect of God. Well, I have news for them: Kindly yield the way; we are the elect of God; join us if you think you are also the elect of God; there is enough to do for all in Gods wide creation; We can work things out; we now have a new world order, a new dispensation; the old is passing and giving way to the new; the old has not succeeded in ushering us into the life of God and the unity of humanity; you have had your chance; now it is our turn; or rather let us all do it together. Recently I came across a news item (John Allen, National Catholic Reporter, October 13, 2012) wherein a Vatican authority (Archbishop) criticizes Leadership Conference of Women Religious (nuns) in the United States for not respecting revelation and its essential elements. The only response to that would be that the Vatican authorities have not yet learnt from the numerous costly mistakes made in the past all in the name of God entrusting the correct interpretation of scripture and tradition to them. This kind of arrogant and armchair thinking coming from autocrats shielded from ground realities not only lacks sound theological support but also is fraught with serious consequences.
The peace that comes from the life of a person living in utter truth, as one knows it, is priceless and beyond what words can describe. There is another oft-heard saying: Honesty is the best policy. Sathyameva jayathe (truth alone wins) taken from Mundaka Upanishad is inscribed on the national emblem of India. The age-old Vedic verse beginning with satyameva Jayati is so powerful that it requires at least a brief parphrasing: Truth alone prevails, not the untruth; through the divine path of truth the sages whose desires have been completely realized reach the abode of the Supreme Truth. The constant prayer of a seeker is: Asatoma sat gamaya (Lord, lead me from truth to untruth). How to speak one's truth is well expressed in the beautiful Vedic teaching: Satyam bruyat, priyam bruyat, na bruyat satyam apriyam // Priyam ca nanrutam bruyat, esha dharma sanatanah. Pharaphasing the verse will give us: Always speak the truth without offending others; never speak untruth to please others; this is the eternal morality (religion). Religion at the time meant righteous living. Now it looks like religion, that is divorced or separated from morality, is given the portfolio of rituals, superstitions, and pilgrim centers calculated to raise money in ingenious ways.
Humanity to be Cleansed
No authority can supplant one's conscience. God will not do it. It will not make sense if God does it. There was no need for God to give it to us in the first place if God plans to take it away from us. Tampering with one's conscience is a great crime. The region of conscience belongs exclusively to God. One experiences God's sacred presence there. That is where God is present most in a human made in the image of god. Autocrats, dictators, monarchs, and religious authorities take upon themselves to supplant sincere persons consciences with their will and mandates. They threatened legitimate expressions of freedom and consciences in the past with penalty of death and eternal damnation. They inflicted these penalties by force. They made themselves God by usurping powers and authorities that did not belong to them. Ironically some of them were killed by the very same force (sword) they used to kill others. Now they may not deal in deaths, but may try to kill others ostracizing, excommunicating, taking away their livelihood, or ruining their reputation. They bind people in self-serving knots. Their logic begs the question. On the one hand the autocrats say they respect a person's conscience. On the other hand they say a conscience is deluded or is not right if it is not formed according to their norms. With them there is no winning for losing. They say they only censure a conscience that is not properly formed. Again they decide on the proper formation of a conscience. They are the judge and the jury. They give themselves the felicitous task of being the custodians of people's consciences! They impress upon us the gravity of their task by asking for prayers for God's guidance.
Even in a democracy like that of the US when protests and demonstrations broke out in the late 1960s and early 1970s against the Vietnam War the political and religious (Christian) authorities were not at all happy, and penalized the young men and women protestors considering them rebels and traitors. Many of the young men and women were conscientious objectors. Many of them did not see the point in losing their lives in a far away land fighting a war that was unnecessary and unjust. Quite a few of them fled to Canada to escape stringent penalties to save their conscience and their lives. My question is where were the special class of religious authorities entrusted by God to interpret the scriptures? Where were they during centuries of immoral slavery? Where were they when immoral kings and rulers usurped power and oppressed poor people with unbearable taxations, or waged Thirty Years or Hundred Years' wars in which they had no say, and in effect sentenced them to death at their whims with no regard for their lives or families? Where were they when, in a Christian country like Germany, the most heinous crime of the last century the mass murder of 6 million (60 lakhs) Jews took place? Was not God working in them at such times? If history does not teach us, if we do not learn the right lessons from history, if we still think that autocratic religious leaders interpret scriptures and God's will for us, we are utterly stupid, nay insane, and do not deserve any better than what we get from them. The numerous blunders the autocratic religious leaders committed through their acts of commissions or omissions through the centuries tell us that they have an awful track record or they are not any better than we are in interpreting the scriptures or discerning God's will. Of course we need to take responsibility in studying scriptures, history, traditions, and customs before we can make informed and enlightened comments and decisions. While guidance and consultations are indispensable with regard to obscure matters, we cannot shirk our responsibility or delegate it to someone else in making vital decisions that affect our temporal and eternal life. We cannot let anyone or any authority claiming some extraordinary power or commission from God downplay or undermine the importance of our conscience. I might also add that over forty years of my clinical practice in the US and in India I have come across quite a few persons and families use pressure on and influence social service agencies, legal system, psychologists, and psychiatrists to declare others mentally sick or mentally incompetent to get their ways.
The requisites for forming a good conscience are 1. Utter sincerity, 2. A passionate desire for truth, 3. The knowledge of good and evil, and 4. The best available knowledge related to the matter to be decided on at the time. 5. Determination to bear the consequences of one's decision made on the basis of one's conscience. Humanity needs to be thoroughly cleansed from the past, and needs a new orientation guided by universal ethics, morals, and conscience.
Truth Verses Justice
This morning (October 19, 2012) when I got up to join my wife over a cup of tea before she left home to visit her relatives in Illinois, she asked me why I looked very serious and sad. I told her my bone is aching seeing the plight of humanity. Barely 10% of humanity has the conveniences and modern amenities that Americans have. The poorest in America are better off than the most middle class people in the rest of the world. America is choking on its own affluence. Its incredible and morally unacceptable waste in food, clothing, furniture, appliances, and other consumer goods can adequately supply the needs of millions of persons in the world. A piece of furniture or a costly curtain may be thrown away because it does not match with other items in the house. Americans are numb and desensitized to the point that we are not able to see the massive waste right in front of us. We are in self-pity licking our own wounds inflicted by others in the secluded, fortified island of our own narcissism. A couple of days ago while driving I was listening to a news item on the National Public Radio (US) in which the reporter said that tons of perfectly usable medical supplies are destroyed. The reporter gave the example of a large amount of wooden tongue depressants destroyed because of the expiration date on them. Would well-packed wooden tongue depressants need an expiration date?! Lawyers taking over every aspect of American life are intimidating persons and paralyzing life. I think of a majority of them are vultures feasting on human carcasses. This taking over life by lawyers in the US is quickly spreading to India. I have a nice and safe pool meeting international standard, I thought, filled with mountain-spring water adjoining my Ashram in Munnar (India) for our enjoyment. A well-meaning friend of mine said it needs a railing between the pavilion and the pool. Rather than arguing with him, I put a sign: No entry without permission. Another friend looking at a can of chocolate in the kitchen said it had an expiration date. I knew the chocolate was good and told him that it is only for my use. I want to mention here that expiration dates serve a very useful purpose, but we also need to use our good sense.
The other day I was shocked by the sentence of a court involving a fraudulent case. One would think that high court judges have the good sense of deciding the merits of a spurious legal suit brought to it by a greedy, dishonest person. We have a situation where good ordinary persons with no legal background would do better than what the judges did. The case in point was reported yesterday (October 18, 2012) in Malayala Manorama. The Supreme Court of India reversing the judgment of the High Court of Kerala observed that the High Court failed in evaluating the documents in front of them. The documents presented by the Mother Superior of Sacred Heart Home, Punnaveli, Pathanamthitta, related to a betrayal of trust. The High Court failed to evaluate the documents presented by Mother Marykkutty, age 75, and sentenced her to one and a half year of imprisonment and thirty lakhs of rupees (about $60,000) in penalty.
There needs to be a mechanism in India whereby performances of high court and lower court judges are evaluated periodically. Intimidating and bullying lawyers of the American and Indian legal system certainly need to go. Since people are not given training in ethics, morals, and sound principles of cooperative living in a healthy society as part of their basic and on-going education, too many laws are passed by legislatures. The lawyers and judges are there to throw light on carefully crafted laws. Many cases can be settled by interdisciplinary mediation teams. The slow-grinding Indian bureaucracy of the bullock-cart era also needs to disappear. When I spend 2-3 months in the US every year I have a deep sigh of relief seeing the cleanliness, courtesy, and efficiency of government offices. No political patronage is required for getting things done. No one is likely to think of offering a bribe to get things done.
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