opposites reconcile in faith as well

One of the things I learnt in life is that people have opinions. I have opinions, people have them and everyone has different degrees of strength in their opinions. The truth and the strength of the opinion is generally inversely proportionate. That is a happy home truth. If you come from the premise (where I come from) that all truth is relative then all statements are opinions, because all of what you say is dependent on the truth you know or have been taught. The best amongst us understand that and hence always temper their opinions. They understand that and hence qualify their statements as opinions. This has been one of the biggest learnings in my life – that no one really knows anything and that you have to sit there and try it and understand it to really know what you think you know. That too is the truth relevant at that point of time, till better data or more data or a better understanding of data changes it. Why am I spewing this shit? I had a nice experience recently that made me laugh at myself. I too am quite a joker, but the only hope I have is that I am admitting to this paradoxical behavior in myself.

So – I was going through some professional crisis. It was quite painful and in the flux of it all, it was taking some amount of time for me to reinvent myself. But just as the crisis was hitting its peak, something stupid happened.

A week ago, in the morning I took Jispa to the pool and then went to play Badminton. When I was about to leave after the game at the gymkhana I realized that I couldn’t find my wallet. I did remember distinctly taking it but, for some reason, I couldn’t find it. I searched around at the court and then at the reception, where I sit in the morning and all the way to the car. I checked the Gymkhana records – I hadn’t swiped my card at the reception and hence possibly I did not get it today morning. So, then I went home, hoping that I left it somewhere there. When at home I couldn’t find it, I was seriously disturbed. Seriously.

Losing a wallet is not that disturbing as is it being the last straw breaking what was already a shitty week, mentally. I couldn’t get any lower. And that’s when the question of faith always hits me.

I was brought up a Hindu Jain (that in itself is a paradox) and I grew to be an atheist. It took some amount of real mind work from my side to stop believing that there is a God. The process took over 20 odd years. From the time I stopped asking God for favors to the time I actively stopped believing in him. It’s been an interesting story. As a father, I have taken some decisions and Jispa doesn’t know God. She had a conversation recently with her teacher on using the lowercase G for writing god in her essay and he teacher corrected her. While on one hand as a father I have been extremely proud of this, a small little voice inside of me is wondering – what happens when shit will hit the roof? Whom will she turn to. Man created God to explain the wondrous nature and the stroke of luck that we encounter while we get on with our life. It explains the unexplainable. When things happen without much explanation, a supreme power is always the best to explain it all. It becomes easier to handle.

The ancient philosophy versus the scientific philosophy to my mind is centered behind this conundrum. Science teaches us to think through and understand cause and effect. Everything can be explained but only the explanations haven’t been found out yet. The counter is simple – at the core itself, life is unexplainable and hence what meaning are you searching for.

My understanding of Jainism at its core is - forget all this – find harmony in your life as part of a greater eco system without wondering about cause and effect.

Cause and effect in science is explainable through experiments and in religion through God.

So when shit hits the roof, as it well; when unexplained phenomena happens with you as the only sufferer, when despair is all around and when you are alone; where will you find reserve and resolve? Will you find it inside of you or do you need someone outside looking at you and telling you, that you can do it, escape it, solve it, manage it, sleep through it?

I have had a childhood corrupted by faith. Like the songs of the 80’s and Amitabh Bachchan who cannot be removed from my psyche, no matter how much I try, so cannot be faith. I haven’t had a life changing moment that cancelled my faith. It has been a slowly drip murder. Funnily enough, this means that my faith is never really dead, but is merely sleeping. Waiting to pounce on my weak moments, helping me fight back. I seriously wonder what will Jispa do. In ten years time, I would like to talk to her on this topic more than anything else, and then 20 years hence and then on my death bed. What is a life, untarnished by faith?

But coming back – I lost my wallet and I was pissed as hell. I conversed once with god (small G) and asked what the hell man? I immediately laughed and reminded myself that I am an atheist and there isn’t anyone to listen, dear boy. Then when I searched at home and I didn’t find it, I remembered my granny’s little mantra that helped her find stuff that was lost. She taught it to us as kids. I am going to share this mantra with you and its worked for me many times. So when you lose something and you want it you say “paan khagar badri wala, hun saath waar hehe karis, maari vastu madi jaay toh!” translation – Paan Khagar Badri Wala (some dude I think), I will do (say, enact whatever) “hehe” seven times, if I find my belonging. And yes – you guessed it right – this atheist and non believer and a ritual hater – said it to himself. I did it. And I smiled to myself. I believed in Paan Khagar Badri Wala while rejecting God (big G).

I stepped into the shower smiling at myself. I was amused by my own beliefs and fundamentals. While I was in the shower, the phone rang. I quickly wiped myself and ran out. I picked the phone and it was from the gymkhana – “sir, we found your wallet. It was stuck inside of the seat of the sofa.” Haha. Mr Badri Wala did not fail me, it so seems. I laughed at myself and did the next logical thing. The mantra bounds me to a promise that I have to do hehe, seven times as payback. Hence – I hehe’d seven times after this call. A promise is a promise.

I so laughed at myself. My faith had been tested and it came out victorious. I didn’t know what to say or feel. I wanted faith to lose but I wanted my wallet to be found. If I was scientific – I would have believed that the wallet would have been found in any case and if I had not conversed with god and Mr Badri wala, I would had greater faith in myself and in our people’s honesty to return wallets; and if I was a man of faith, it would have made it only stronger.

The fact is that the answer is far more complex. I myself don’t know what a man I am. I am a man made of faith but run on logic; or as I write it – I am made of logic but run on faith. Oh dear me. I will never know what I truly am; the experiment is forever vitiated.

But Jispa should be a classic case here. Will see ‘hehe’ seven times when she wants her belongings found? Will she simply shrug off bad luck as what it is – luck. Will she attribute her success to her as that  what it possibly is – luck. The luck of draw that creates an envrironment around you and infuses you with a gene pool conducive to making it work for you. Sure, I am being very pessimistic here and attributing luck to most things. Surely your own ability calls for some credit but then I would give both sides ability then – good and bad things happen thanks to your ability. I am happy with that.

But after all this – I was so happy with myself. I found myself acting so silly and so full of faith. I loved the contradictions in myself. The seeming opposites stayed alive in one brain at the same time. Your initial growth and upbringing is vital but not necessarily an unshakeable attribute as you grow. But as you grow and learn new things, you don’t really forget the old things. Together as they forge in your head, they sometimes create an interesting mish mash of attitudes and beliefs. These obviously work seamlessly in your head. You don’t see contradictions in any of them but to the outsider who uses his own logic finds them stupid and counter intuitive. How many times, I must have got frustrated with people who seemingly create contradictory eco systems in their heads and it drives others up the wall. The big lesson for me to learn here is that which I said as I started the blog – opposites reconcile.

God knows?

 

OMG. It’s the new movie in Bollywood. The movie is a different call on religion than the rest of the movies we get to see in Bollywood. Its starts with an interesting premise wherein an atheist sues God as his shop was destroyed by an earthquake, and he can’t claim insurance as it was an act of God. But since you can’t get God, you get the godman who work as representatives of God. While doing so it questions the rituals we believe in. To help the protagonist along the way, God himself comes in and guides our man.

While it is an interesting take on religion, it’s not a movie that I would recommend watching. Too many flaws, some bad direction, silly moments, melodrama and of course the worst them all – Akshay Kumar. I hate the guy. He was from my school (much senior), but I hate the guy. He acts like a dodo. Let’s forget him. Some parts of the script I kind of liked. They quite clearly talk about the futility of some rituals and go so far as to call statues – stone. Brave. They also clearly and openly smashed the ritual of offering milk to the Shiva lingam to see it flow as waste … while of course making the moral point of wasting that milk while the poor starve. A lot of it (except the moral preaching and giving to poor etc) was something I resonated with. I too don’t see any meaning in these religious rituals and I found myself rooting for the protagonist. I also dint mind God coming in to help but (spoiler alert)then God punished him for saying too many mean things and then brought him redemption and revealed his form to him.

Ohhh come one. Final redemption can’t be God. I wish the man would have done stuff himself. God can help but he should have won it all by himself. Or even lost it… But the power must come from within. My friends know about my beliefs and the other day I was again trying to explain to them. I am not an atheist. But I am not a ritualistic and of all the bloody things in the world, Jispa will not learn to pray from me. I will not teach her to bow, fold hands or pray to God. That’s for sure. She can learn it from her grannies if she wishes, she can practice what she wants, but I am not teaching her this. I will openly get her to question her faith. I will ask her and even possibly teach her what I understand of the faith. I will get her to know what she is doing while she is praying. If she wants a boon in return, there the Hindu Gods might still grant you one, but the poor Jain gods do no such thing. So if you want some special favors then you better bark up the right tree.

I keep telling people, please understand what you are praying to and what the religion of that God is saying. I have nothing against faith. Faith can move mountains. Stuff can happen when you believe in it. How it happens is mysterious. What happens typically stays within scientific principals, but faith can mean many things to many people. One of my favorite authors, Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame who teaches behavioral economics at the Chicago school, says that it’s not surprising that we have so much crime. It’s surprising that we have so little. He reasons that it’s pretty simple for most of us to commit crimes, small or large. But we don’t. A vast majority of people possibly have a moral code that stops them. It is an interesting thought. I kept thinking on that line. Possibly religion also has had a part to play in it. I am a vegetarian and by choice, not bound by religion. But if I probably grew up eating meat I would have perhaps not been open to being a vegetarian. My belief in Karma ,as in if you do shit, in the end it comes back on you, in some form or the other, is also possibly shaped by religion that I was exposed to as a child. So I am not against religion per se. It’s a straightforward stand but to the layman … fed on a diet of religion, sacrifice and ritual, it does seem highly nuanced. So to my friends it’s always a funny one. And the weirdest of them all is that once somewhere one of Jasmine’s friends was having some conversation with me and I said something that helped her put fix the Rubik’s cube in her head and she understood the power or significance of religion in her life. Aila… I promise I didn’t do anything of the sort, intentionally, at least.

Unintended consequences, faith, prayer… WTF? God knows!

Anyways… long time I haven’t put a video on my blog. I like listening to this song these days. Don’t judge me. But it’s definitely sung well and I like the beat. And it’s got no complicated lyrics. None. And you can hum along very very easily. In fact the lyrics can be written on the back of a tissue paper. What? Four lines? Hell… God knows!

 

a question of faith

Ever since I remember I have had this fascination for the Haji Ali Dargah off Worli sea face. The setting of the Shrine is perfect. It is around a kilometer off the mainland. The sea face is a very busy Mumbai arterial road. I remember passing through this place many times when I was a kid. Whenever we had to go to town we would pass by Worli and I would put my head out to see and admire the shrine.

Here is the satellite image. The little white thing out in the sea is the shrine.

My parents were largely secular. I remember whenever we came to Mumbai in the vacations from Dubai, we would have one scheduled visit to Haji Ali. So as a kid I have been there quite a few times. But after we shifted back to Mumbai for some reason it fell off our ‘to visit’ spots. I must have hardly been there once or twice since. When I was dating Jasmine I remember asking her if she had ever been there. She said that she had never been there as it was a Muslim place of worship. That’s when I first thought of it as a Muslim place. The dargah is largely Sufi which meant that its appeal would largely be open to both faiths. But I also guess it would be a question of faith and exposure. After having stayed in Dubai, I guess my family would be obviously more open to the Muslim faith. But then Jasmine also stayed close to a Muslim dominated locality. But would that have meant bringing them closer or further widening of the divide? I don’t know. It could cut both ways. Like next to Jasmine’s building was a Muslim dominated building. The problem would arise during Bakri Id. This is when they would have goats in the compound a couple of days prior to the Id and the same would be sacrificed on Id. This would happen in the open. Most vegetarians would find this highly disgusting and unbearable. Possibly this would further divide ‘us’ from ‘them’. The Moharram mourning with self-flagellation is also something that is a point of misunderstanding. But if I were to put on the opposite cap – I don’t think the Muslims would understand the 7 day fasting that Jains do or the fact that Jains don’t eat onions and garlic and other stuff that grows underground. In fact I guess the biggest grouse that anyone can have of Jains is that on religious grounds they are holier than thou and in business they just are complete blood suckers.

But this is not a blog about disparity. This is about plurality and the open embrace of Sufism. So when a friend from UK came to Mumbai and requested to see the shrine I was more than happy to her around. As timeline would have it, we only had a morning slot free. Which meant a visit to Haji Ali at 6 am. You can only go there during low tide as high tide submerges the half km entry path. 6 am is also a good thing as it meant availability of parking. In that area there is absolutely no parking available. I wonder where the pilgrims park their car during normal hours. I would guess the availability of parking would tempt many more pilgrims that what the shrine currently gets.

6 am also meant that the path was relatively free of all the beggars that normally dot the sides. No crowd to jostle with and a peacefull prayer time for my friend. When I walked to the shrine and when I walked in, I was somehow feeling a bit ‘nothing’. I don’t know. A bit let down in some sorts. Let down that I felt nearly nothing. I was expecting to feel nostalgic at the least, or even possibly feel a vibe or some thing. I was left unimaginably cold to the whole thing. Watching the Mumbai skyline also had no effect on me. Possibly the tide was way too low. A higher tide would have made for a dramatic scene with the waves lashing. But hell it was a really cold trip. Walk in walk out.

Dam me and my realism on god values. I see it nothing but an interesting monument. As of now at least I have nothing to ask from him or him to ask from god on my behalf. I think every time that this robs me of the magic that a more religious person might have felt. And this stuff is what I teach Jispa. That a temple is just a monument. God can solve your issues. You don’t need to pray to God for anything. So forget me and Jasmine, even Jispa won’t feel that magic. I felt that faith as a child growing up. It was there till about I was 21. Even after that I went through the motions till I stopped on day on the banks of the Ganga. Now it’s a cold nothingness. I am not really complaining but I wonder if that is an important part of life skills that I have not passed on. I wonder.

har har gange

We are just back from a trip to the holy mountains. The Himalayas. To get to the Garwhal part of eth Himalayas we pass though our favourite town, Rishikesh. We don’t stay at Rishikesh proper but we stay close to Laxman Jhulla. That is as far as you can get from the proper town, but in the heart of the tourist circuit.
When you are there do visit the lovely Devraj coffee corner aka German bakery and have pizzas, pancakes, lemon mint tea and almond triangles. I got enough of the latter for office for people to wonder what on earth it was. It is some sweet almond paste on a pie crust. It’s quite amazing and tastes quite divine in contrary to its humble earthy name. Go ahead when you are in that part of the world.
But that is metaphorically divine, what we got that is really divine is ‘ganga jal’. Water from the sacred river – Ganga (ganges). We took bottles and filled them with water from the river. We got for the lady who comes home in the evening to help with the household chores. We had got one bottle for her the last time we were there and this time Jasmine insisted on getting one more. I really did not see the point but went along.
Yesterday after we arrived our lady; her name is Devki, was happy to see the Ganga jal. I asked her why would she need one bottle of it and how does she plan to use it?
She said that in her hut/slum colony (jhopadpatti) people keep coming to ask for a little Ganga jal. She asks them for a glass of water in which she mixes one capful of Ganga jal. That’s it. Only one capful. And she never lets anyone else touch the bottle. It is a precious resource not to be squandered away. But what is used for? Oh… people come all the time to her for it. When someone is dying, they make the person drink it so that the passage is smooth. Or when she is feeling unwell she mixes it with a glass full of water, or for other occasions. But yes it is a prized resource.
I felt bad getting only a bottle full. If I had known I would have ditched the almond tarts and gotten another bottle full.
Devki told us thatshe was illiterate and that she uses ganga jal for everything as that is what she has been told is good. She can’t read and hence she listens to what she has been told. I told her that while we read a lot we still are at the mercy of what people tell us. We also don’t know for sure. We also plainly do what is told. To my mind – what works for you is medicine and what doesn’t is not. I had a tonsil issue that refused to go away in my teens. Till I took a long homeopathy course. It worked enough for me never to get it back again in all its fury. Probably it was that or probably there were external factors at work. No one knows for sure, do they? Read this article on homeopathy by one blogger I follow regularly. http://girishshahane.blogspot.com/2010/06/which-is-witch.html. All I say is that standing face to face with Devki I am not prepared to say that she is wrong and that I am right.
Now I know why Jasmine made me fill two more bottles. One friend of ours has two servants and last time Jasmine got only one bottle. It had resulted in a near fight situation. It’s a good thing I listen to Jasmine. She obviously knows best.

untested by faith?

Well of all things in the morning I got going, through my feeds, on the topic of faith and religion. It is always a contentious topic where some things that work for one need not work for the other. The contention starts when one starts imposing the will or the rather should I say belief of one on another. I have remained fairly neutral on this, especially in open forums. Religion to me is a private choice. It must not be imposed not argued. I take no sides. I try and remain core to my beliefs. At the simplest if I attempt to code it, it might read thus - Try and not hurt, try and help. I have made some noises to the effect in my earlier blogs as well.
Being a parent puts even more stress on one’s belief. What I do is what Jispa will learn to follow. The second last thing I want to teach her is a reliance on a religion. The last thing I want to teach her is absence of faith. How do I reconcile the two within her, within us? The answer is not so straight forward. It is difficult on yourself to codify your beliefs in a manner that your six year old can understand them. I would like her to have a right to question belief. To choose what she thinks is right from her perspective. Above all, I want her to choose something, not because her parents have chosen, but she herself has found something that rings some bell inside of her. The belief must be strong enough to help her when she needs it and flexible enough to accommodate the many inconsistencies that she will encounter as she grows up. It must be able to expand and to allow for opposites to remain reconciled. It must never draw her into an argument but allow to accept others for they are and for what they stand for.
I don’t know how we are doing it. It does help that we have Jispa. She seems to be accepting abstractions and apparent vagueness pretty well. I love it when I say “I don’t know, no one knows and what you think works for you is what works for you”. She thinks a bit. She is quiet, absorbing not refuting. Then the penny drops after due consideration, not blind obeisance. That’s my girl. My mom tells me that I am teaching her to argue. Well I probably am. Anyone read this book – The Argumentative Indian. I am teaching plurality of right.
While jumping tabs I came across two awesome videos that capture similar messages quite well.

This one captures the my belief in scientific thought



This one captures the my belief in religious thought



Do note I am not an atheist. I have faith in faith. It’s only more internal. Thanks Jasmine. You might not know but our faith has evolved thanks to you and me together. I owe a lot of this to you.
Once I had shown my kundli (horoscope) to someone while we were in college. The astrologer predicted that I would not have a love marriage. I was a bit downcast. Jasmine asked me “do you really believe in this?” I said “no, not really”. With her characteristic matter of fact tone she replied “then why do you go to them?” I never did afterwards. I never did.

ortho pra... what was that again?

Orthopraxy is a term derived from Greek (ὀρθοπραξις) meaning "correct action/activity", and is a religion that places emphasis on conduct, both ethical and liturgical, as opposed to faith or grace etc. This contrasts with orthodoxy, emphasizing a correct belief, and ritualism, the use of rituals.
Gandhiism is orthopraxic versus orthodox. Jainism which we followed since our childhood was fed almost as orthodoxic to us. Why? Why do not teach our children the power of correct action over ritual. As kids we really at some point went foul of all these practices and switched off pretty soon. We rebelled soon enough. It’s a wonder we didn’t get atheist. To my mind Jainism is as orthopraxic as can get.
As kids we loved rituals so much that we even copied the rituals of cricketers. So we might wear / use their brand of sports goods but not their sport ethic
Hinduism per say is also orthopraxic but it is sadly too steeped in rituals today and has become the beacon of orthodox practice and dogma. Everything in religion must be questioned. No doctrine can be taken as sacred. It must appeal to your inner core. Whether your core is right brained or left. When you understand your inner core and are able to find a doctrine that matches it, I guess peace will spring? Is that why people are drawn to religion? If that is so then why religion must be given by birth? Should not choosing religion be a rite of passage; to be chosen once you assume greater understanding of your inner core? Shouldn’t the religion as a child be different from that as a teen and then as an adult… I would assume that an inner core does not change significantly but the manifestations it assumes over a period of time vary. At different age cycles different elements of your personality are dominant or dormant, thus shaping your belief system and behavior. They might not be too different but enough I assume to move between religions.
Such a long discourse on religion? From me? I must shot in the brains. Jasmine and I realized one day, that in our house we don’t even have a temple, no matter how small. No small statue / image / sticker of anything that anyway resembles an act of faith or god. Well a Christmas tree in the attic does not actually count, does it? Does that make us less religious.
All this is fine as intellectual conversation. It is important to understand your core and ideal and be true to it at all times. How many of us believe ourselves to be nice and fluffy but are unable to live up to it when the test comes calling. I have let myself down a zillion times. All I hope is that I don’t the commit same let downs over again. Hopefully this will make me a better person.