When I left home at the age of 17 to become a sanyasi (monk) in a religious order, I was motivated by accomplishing my salvation. More concretely, I wanted to become a saint and bring others to God. Examining and analyzing my motive in becoming a monk years later, I came to the realization that death anxiety among other considerations may also have played a major role in my decision. Existentialist psychologists consider death anxiety to be a great motivating factor. Bringing philosophy, theology, spirituality, and psychology to throw light on the purpose of life, ultimately the blind leap of faith alone can make any sense out of life. One has to believe in some kind of organizing intelligence or higher power (God) to explain the universe.
Indian scriptures state: Ajnanenavrtam jnanam: Knowledge is covered by ignorance. The Hindu philosophy which is also theology holds that a human is born in ignorance, lives in ignorance, and dies in ignorance. Ignorance is the chief enemy. Information from the outside world is subjected to experience and processed to acquire knowledge. Knowledge percolating into life through experience acquires insight and becomes wisdom. Wisdom through a difficult process of discernment removes avidya (non-knowledge) that are really different layers of maya (illusion) to attain moksha (liberation). This long and tedious process, of course, requires many transmigrations of the soul or rebirths.
Truth and Integrity
Truth and integrity are tossed into the ocean of corruption, avarice, revenge and false accusations on a daily basis. Reports of violence and crimes abound in media reports. Fortunately, most racist, casteist, colonial, imperial, and autocratic structures that have maintained a so-called well-behaved life and world order by brutal external force have physically crumbled. But these structures of discrimination and prejudice are still well-entrenched by and large in the hearts and minds of persons. Physical structures that need to usher in a new order, and that respect human rights are enshrined in beautiful volumes of legislated laws but have not been enforced, say, in India. Religions that at one time used to be custodians of moral integrity and values are losing their credibility and moral bite. This is a transitional stage where struggles are being waged among anarchy, vested, regional, and group interests for domination. As long as a broad spectrum of values, rights and interests of an all-inclusive humanity is not secured and safe-guarded, our moral and spiritual progress will be at great risk. Therefore a new sense of urgency and higher level of consciousness and awareness are of paramount importance. This can come only from a fine conscience formed on the basis of a spirituality beyond religions and a universal truth energy that respects everyone's rights.
Both Hindu and Christian explanations and speculations are not satisfactory to the human mind in that both require faith. Should we then look for a third explanation that is related to conscience (antaryamin) that is in every human?! Here the formation of a conscience absorbing the best from every religion acquires supreme importance. Conscience formed by the best in all religions, and guided by a harmonious, blissful, universal value system headed by truth can set us free from all that prevents us from reaching the fullness of being (God). Here then Truth is God as Mahatma Gandhi surmised, nay, concluded from his experiments with truth in his final stage of life. We may not have much here, but this is all we have if we do not take the blind leap of faith. Yet once we take that leap of total surrendering, we can be like the baby in the hands of a fully trusted father, who is tossed in the air and enjoys the thrill and excitement of that bounce without any care in the world. We can also think of the Supreme Being (God) as the full reality reflecting in our consciousness as a good and clean mirror.
I have experienced prejudices and discriminations in my many years of life and work in the land of the free and the brave (USA). I returned to India a few years ago to continue my ministry of unity of humanity and universal brotherhood and sisterhood with a new vigor in my setting stage of life. I did not anymore have to look for my livelihood as I provided for my simple requirements. So I plunged whole-heartedly into my ministry saying to myself: I have nothing to lose, everything to gain.
But ever since I arrived, I have been swimming upstream against raging currents. The powerful, sinister forces in a parish I live viciously attacked and defamed me and my wife and damaged my property, and that too led by a misguided parish priest, for up-holding the values that East West Awakening stands for. My relatives mostly abandoned me for not catering to their financial wants as I used to in the past when I was working in the United States. Politicians and their parties and unions do not care as I do not make financial contributions or as I do not go along with their plans. I buy lumbers even as trees are rotting in my property as I do not provide bribes to respective officers. My trust has been severely betrayed by some relatives and a close friend causing huge financial loss. I did not have much luck with the law enforcement department. I am pleading my own case filed against me by the one who betrayed my trust on account of his own insatiable greed. A magazine called Osanna clamoring for reform has an article on me without mentioning my name and depicting me as a fraud and a time-tomb. That means the so-called reformers also can be corrupt!
Even as I am writing this, we are facing a vicious false accusation against a trusted Ashram member from a former employee. My older brother living a quiet life had, calling my pet name, warned me: What you are telling is true and right, but you are not going to go anywhere if you do not toe the line of those who are in authority and have power even though they are corrupt or blind. I, for instance, go for regular religious worship, not because of those leaders but because of my convictions in my heart. I do not have the energy to fight the corrupt religious or political system. I can only wish you good luck. I suffered from many discriminations, prejudices, violations of rights, and a false law-suit in the United States. I am suffering from denigrations and violations of rights and a false law-suit in my country of birth (India). Yet these are the only two countries I wish to live, the oldest and the biggest democracies. Both have their strengths and drawbacks. In spite of adversities I am not a quitter as I am spiritually in a vigorous condition. I am just one person in this vast universe doing what I can. I know in my heart that ultimately Truth and Integrity will triumph. Life of truth is worth living no matter what.
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