Recently, a news item was published in the front page of this newspaper which reported that a mother of three committed suicide. It was reported that she took the step thinking that she would go to heaven! It was said that she had watched a TV news report that stated that if a person died on the auspicious Vaikunta Ekadashi day, he or she would go directly to heaven. Of course, as usual, the report was light enough for entertainment but not deep enough to cause introspection.
Media is supposed to make people think logically and question the happenings around them. But nowadays, news is so high on sensationalism that people are left confused. TV news channels have even started to add background music to news reports just like in TV serials. When there is a dramatic news story, there is the sound of thunder in the background. When it’s a sad story, there is a morose sounding score. When there is a happy report, there is a peppy jingle in the background. One is left wondering if they are watching a TV serial instead of news.
Sometimes the news is not even dramatic but the music is. All tactics are used to grab attention, in the process leaving the audience too emotional to be logical and too passionate to be rational. But then when it comes to God, religion, heaven and hell, rationale and logic are thrown to winds. May be that is why it is said, “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion.” And too many lives have been lost on religion and its creation of heaven and hell.
Do we as a nation spend too much time on God? Well, going by the sheer number of religions and religious centers in our nation, yes. In fact, very soon we will have more Godmen than Gods in this country. God and religion is a big business. It’s a safe business; first because there is a lot of money in it and second because you can’t question God and activities related to Him. That is why we never ask — is it fair in a “secular” democracy to pay for religious trips? Is it fair to take the money of a hardworking “agnostic” (a believer in God, but not religion) or an “atheist” (a person who does not believe in the existence of God) and fund the religious trips?
So will the government fund the trip of a group of agnostics or atheists if they wanted to go to the United Kingdom and listen to the revered lectures of the legendary atheist Richard Dawkins? No way. Because we have come to believe that prayers help and lectures don’t. So now we ask, what has all this government - funded pilgrimages and prayers got us?
Because even after all these years of government - funded prayer trips, we are still a nation with the most corrupt, the most poor, selectively kind and occasionally merciful people; a nation of people who preach better than they practice. For now, after all these years of praying we are nowhere close to having a heavenly nation. It’s more a haven for the cunning and the crooked. May be the secret is not in the prayer but in the individualistic character of a nation’s citizenry.
Recently, noted Islamic scholar and peace activist Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, in an article about his visit to the US, wrote about an incident which brings forth the nature of people in India today. It seems one day in 1988, Swami Vivekananda was walking on a street in Chicago, USA, wearing long robes. As he passed a well - dressed couple, he noticed the lady looking at him and saying to her husband, “I don’t think that man is a gentleman.” Vivekananda stopped, took a step back to the couple and told the lady, “Excuse me madam, in your country it is the tailor who makes a man a gentleman but in ours, it is a man’s character that makes him a gentleman.”
It seems after hearing this story, one of the American Professors told Maulana Wahiduddin, “This may have been true in the past but in today’s India, character is only an export item, not meant for domestic consumption.”
While we so desperately try to find ways via religion to get to heaven, maybe we are better off acting upon the lyrics of an old children’s song many may have heard — “Time to be happy.” The song simply said this:
The time to be happy is now
And the place to be happy is here
And the way to be happy is to make someone happy
And we’ll have a little heaven right here.
May be it’s time we stopped depending so much on gods and realized that we depend on each other more. We guess He’s tired with us too. How many prayers can the poor Lord answer? Speaking of which, a joke comes to mind. Once a poor man knelt in prayer and asked, “God just somehow bless me with Rs.2,000 to pay for my child’s medicine. “While he was sobbing, another man came and sat next to him to pray. But unlike the first guy, this one was quiet. Once again the first man loudly sobbed and kept begging, “God please give me Rs.2,000, please God, please give me Rs. 2,000…,” when suddenly the man next to him grabbed him and stuffed Rs.2,000 into his hands and said, “Now shut up and leave.”
The first man, overwhelmed with the furious generosity, thanked him and in parting said, “You are God’s messenger indeed.” To which the man said, “No. I’m just a builder and I need God’s undivided attention, especially since I’m praying for Rs. 200 crore.” Too much praying, too much belief in something that is sensational, too much belief in a concept that we haven’t fully grasped and acting upon it is only going to make life hell for us and others.
May be the children's song has more truth in it than century - old sermons. Or maybe it's too simplistic and expression for a grand concept.
Guess many amongst us would rather wait for another new Godman. It would be better if he's named “Swargananda” to explain the path to heaven. Hopefully with this one, it will be an “enlightening” experience and not a “lightening – sex” experience. Hmm... makes us wonder, is that why some Godmen know so much about heaven; because they are already experiencing it?
As of last evening, after I read about the "suicide for heaven" news report and after a discussion about heaven, hell and why people would die for it, I sang the “Time to be happy” children’s song. Just as I ended my rhyme with “we’ll have a heaven right here,” my wife smiled and said, “Heaven is just round the corner…” She wanted to go to Corner House ice cream parlour. My heaven was right around another corner… I prefer Joy ice cream — mango duet. So probably heaven is not where we go after we die, it is how we live while we’re alive.
