Wondrous by Design

What is a religion worth which costs you nothing? What is a sense of God worth which could be at your disposal, capable of being comfortably elicited when and where you please? It is far, far more God who must hold us, than we who must hold Him. And we get trained in those darkness into that sense of our impotence without which the very presence of God becomes a snare.
FREDERICH VON HUGEL

At certain time in our life we think of our identity and our role in this world. Today I was constructing an identity through the things I had done or has happened to me. Did these things just happen to me or did I do it? What is the role of God in it? Or does he exist at all? Later I began to consider what all I have been through in my life. It didn’t make any sense to me because I was not sure through which perspective I should see it.
Then I began to see it clearly. It came to my mind suddenly that what is more important than answers to these questions is the fact as to why I ask these. Do I really need the answers to the questions or some explanations to justify my actions to a hypothetical friend?
The answer to any question will depend on why you ask the question. Mostly our questions are not questions at all. We’re just cribbing! We ask why such and such thing is happening in our life and not in others life. We think things would have been better if we had done it some other way or we had planned everything before hand. We ask because we don’t have control over things and we want to have control over our life and most of the times others life too.

This not just the case with individual people. It is also true when we consider the human history as a whole. And explains why there are so many ‘alternatives’ in the world—religions, atheism, communism, Epicureanism, capitalalism and so on. These answers were a product of the spirit of the age of its origin.

Bible says ‘you ask and not receive because you ask wrongly to spent it on your desires’. Meaning, God expects us to ask genuine questions. Adam sinned because he didn’t ask God why it was wrong to eat the fruit of the tree. And Job—he challenged God! And he was answered. We ask genuinely when we have insight and wisdom. That should be our actual prayer (...”that love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.”)
“Ask and you will receive”: God expects us to find out for ourselves that God exist and he will answer our questions.
The underlying meaning in the verse is that we should have the insight to ask with an open mind. We don’t receive when we ask for things that reinforce our identity in the world—that’s true for spiritual gifts and material gifts as well. And when we receive such gifts that we ask with a genuine heart we gain more insight.
People ask whether God exist or not. After sometime they abandon the question and drift into their own way of life, because they can’t find an answer. They don’t find an answer because they don’t expect an answer. They are asking for an explanation. Some find an explanation and believe in God; after sometime because of some life situation they reassess their explanation and on finding that it is unsatisfactory they relapse in their belief. Others float in their belief because of the culture and surface slush. This happens because their question is not genuine. If God were to come to these people and say, “ yes I exist because of so and so reasons” they still will have their own plans for their life. And if God doesn’t answer also they have another set of plans. It is a question through which they can base their life style and identity in this world.
God never explains. He only answers. He sings. He convinces. May be when God answers, you can’t explain it to your hypothetical friend. We can’t digest this fact. We can’t believe that God answers through our life. That the life of those who believe in God is itself an explanation that God exist.
This is faith--the answer to our question (or prayer).

A way to find out whether our question is genuine is to consider when we ask it. Do we ask ‘does God exist when we feel inadequate; when we feel that our identity in the world is jeopardy; when we secretly and uncomfortably feel that there nothing great about us? or when we feel that we don’t have control? Think about it.

If we ask questions or hold it in mind with no other intent than knowing the truth, God will answer. God answers when we start wondering.
As a matter of fact, it is true with any question we ask—whether it is regarding the nature of light or the foreign policy of America or whether God exist.

Quote that saved a day.

This qoute by Paulo Cohelo saved a day for me. It was a real audacious mood -lifter.
"Hollow calls for patience. All of a sudden the river entres a sort of hole and stops running as before. At such moments the only way put is to count on the help of time. When the right moment comes the hollow fills up and the water can flow ahead. In the place of the ugly, lifeless hole there now stands a lake that others can contemplate with joy."

"Is There Anything in the World Sadder Than a Train Standing in the Rain?"

Nothing has talked to me as much as the trains did. I had gone to the beach many times with the intent of listening to the sea.But such sublime things never happened.

I lived near to a suburban metro station in Chennai for almost two years.Neither friends, nor fun or studies have moved me as much as the trains did. During the stay their I developed my innate child-like curiosity for trains.It never became a commonplace thing to me.Everyday of my stay I used to open my doors to see trains as they pass by . To see a goods-train idling on then track, when I go for a evening stroll or a cup of tea, delighted me more than anything.

I feel, there is nothing more representative of life as trains. It moves on whatever happens.

My life in that small cramped room was incessantly punctuated by the noise of trains.It has broken my silence innumerable times.Trains have rammed into my dreams when I was half-asleep. I have clinged to their doors and tops and it had taken me to valleys overlooked by mountains with mist running down it. And the full-moon steadily and persistently glowing over it.

I feel trains are not just means of transport but a principal life-mover.People lead their life depending on trains.People beg, people sing.People get entertained.People fall in love. People get killed.But how much ever their lives are changed by trains, it never stops.It keeps running and generates more stories.

One of my unforgettable experience was when I was crossing the railway tracks.I was on the middle of two tracks. And trains were going on both of them. It trembled me.The wind, as the trains moved past almost stuck me down. I simply closed my eyes. It was a scary and sublime feeling.

Most of the times I tend to think of trains as a living-creatures. Much like a super-anaconda with many sub-species.And that it is possible zoologically study the trains and it's evolution from a single primitive ancestor.
If we were to regress to superstitious beliefs with our technological advancements intact, I think trains will be worshiped as deities. And myths will be made about. It is only our reason that keeps us from doing it; not our instincts.No wonder Pablo Neruda said in one of his poems "Is there anything in the world sadder/than a train standing in the rain?"

So, Who Needs Secularism?

When Kamala Suraiya converted to Islam from Hinduism, she was asked in an interview why she converted to Islam, when the religion is notorious for not granting freedom to women. Her reply was,” who needs freedom?” A considerable portion of India also seems to ask “who needs secularism?” Being communal in India can be considered "natural", in the same vein as gay rights activists say that being gay is "natural” for them. Non-secularism is a better option, for a majority of the population and often the only one.
Consider this—the story of an average Kannadiga born in Bangaluru, (it is a cliché, but to one has to embrace different clichés time to time to understand human psyche and society.):
"I was born in Bangaluru in early eighties. My father is a daily wage laborer. He managed to give me education till twelfth standard. After that he could not afford my education. So I took driving classes to work as a driver. I thought I was qualified enough to make a "decent living". I went to IT companies to drive their cabs, or work in any job to make a comfortable living. But I could hardly find jobs. I was enamored by how my city has grown--grown big and grown strange to me. People around have been speaking languages, which I am not comfortable with. I became insignificant. I struggle to eke a living doing all kinds of jobs. I am estranged and confused. But I tried to pick up the strange languages around me.
I often sensed that I was been derided and mocked at; I am not sure whether it is because of my demeanor or because I was not conversant enough in their language or because I was not at par with them. But I used to dismiss these thoughts just as my gut feeling. Later, I managed to open a pan-cigarette shop-- very much below my expectations for a decent livelihood. I converse to the customers in the strange languages I had picked up.
They seemed condescending again and again. But I justified it as my feeling every time I felt it. Nevertheless, these feeling clouded my conscious and unconscious alike. My parents have been saying that, this is our place, and that they have lived here for quite a long time. But why do I find this place more and more distant from my needs, and me as days pass? My identity was being pulled and drawn thin like a gold foil, so much that I don't exist.
I couldn't brush it aside--because I encounter it on a daily basis. Neither could I forget it because, I my meager earning didn’t give any material comfort indulge myself in. So I made up my mind and I said "enough is enough."( I said it much before the terrorist attack in Mumbai.)
I don't know exactly when I did give up trying to speak in the strange languages. But I remember that on when a customer argued with me in his strange language about the price of a pan, I lost my nerve and asked him to get lost. It was so spontaneous that it took a minute or so for me to realize that I had spoken in Kannada, which he would not have understood. I was speaking the language of my soul. I was speaking my soul out.
Understanding that there is no-point arguing with an arrogant person like me, he went away. He may or may not have had his reasons for arguing with me. But why will I care? I had been trying to understand people of his kind for years, just to fit in. But they never seemed to take any effort to understand me. Now, I gave up on understanding them and on my own sensibilities. Neither do I expect them to understand me. All I need is a dignified life. I don't want to argue or debate with them. They would have understood it long time back even if they had half-a-brain. I will make them understand in the tough way. Soon I found that many of my peers share my view."
With majority of political parties contesting the election having made their USP secularism, the issue has found place in the heart of the public morale of progressive India. But what do we mean by secularism?
True secularism starts from the grass-root, not from utopian ideologies. Our idea of progressive India’s secularism is vague and skewed to suit our narrow goals. Thackery and Muthalik wouldn't have existed, but for Mumbai and Bengaluru. Frustrations in a metropolis easily finds echo through out the state.
Identity is not an optional extra, but is a function of a dignified life. The less privileged are the most vocal and aggressive about their identity, though privileged class of the same ethnic or linguistic group do reflect it with lesser intensity. Greater one’s dignity is at peril, the more intensive will be the struggle for identity.
To say that people at the helm of communal and regional political parties started the divide is not true. They merely give it a national expression and identity. The problem was already there. Whether they capitalize on it or not is a different issue.
India is divided on numerous linguistic and ethnic lines which need regional solutions. There can be no one universal secular agenda for India. The litmus test of India's true democracy lies in formulating and implementing it's indigenous secular policy.