Dedications

No other country in the world can match Indians in their fervor of prayers and traditions. Then within the myriad of religions and traditions is the interaction of faith, with people of one faith visiting shrines of other faith which transcends above religions and rituals. This strength of social harmony defies the logic of spiritual leaders and politicians who fear it. The divisions of religions and fabricating flaws in other’s religions are what survival for them is.

Then there are the weak in their faith who want to try another God because their God is not answering their prayers, or people going to a shrine of their faith in faraway places as if God who resides in the shrine in their neighborhood or the altars in their home cease to exist. The basic teaching that God resides in every human being, is losing its value and virtue and getting shrouded with rituals and traditions.

So when you have a Anna Hazare that mobilizes a nation to fight corruption it connects deeper and stronger than a call for religion and its rituals. It connects with neighboring Pakistan who we love to consider as our enemy, and we have people there visiting Anna Hazare to understand and emulate his fight in Pakistan. The same goes with Mother Theresa who works of charity and humanity were not restricted to a ‘gated community’ of religion. Her inspiration could be religion but her work was above its rituals, and reached out to humanity. The list of examples can be endless, but what is limiting us to do the same is the corruption of our souls and conscience.

Articles such a death of a new born child and the parents donating the eyes of the child, acts of bravery to save lives; acts of honesty where a poor driver returns a bag of a passenger who forgot it in his taxi and it contained diamonds and jewels; touch our hearts with joy of the existence of human values and again list of humanity can be endless. What is limiting is the narrowness of our minds with ambition and success. The desire to win and succeed at any cost is what creates the ugly world we are now living and experiencing. A simple act of donating eyes after death is not done due to our selfishness. If we cannot be generous even after death, what generosity can we practice when alive? Which God are we trying to please when we cannot stir the God is us?

We then blame the politicians for the mess. What they are doing is exactly what we are doing. They too want to succeed, they too want to acquire wealth, they just want about anything and everything we want. So why complain? Where does this logic or doctrine come about that politicians are there to do good for their people; religious heads are there to lead people of their faith towards good; municipal officials are there to serve us. When the fact is we don’t want to good or desire good of our neighbor or society. We do wrong in our moral lives and want religious head to lead us to good, we litter the streets and throw garbage around and think it is the job of the Municipality to keep the streets clean.

We all like to believe that we are so spotlessly clean, that we don’t cheat, we don’t harm, and we don’t do evil. All of this could be true, but the problem is that we turn a blind eye towards people who cheat and people who get cheated, we thank God that we are not victims of harm and don’t do a thing to report the one who has harmed or help the one subjected to harm, we don’t do evil but fear the ones who do it.

The worst form of corruption is not being involved in it, but knowing about it and not doing anything about it. Still shamelessly we pray to God and appease him with rituals and offerings, and tell Him that he almighty and all powerful and fear human beings that do wrong, and stay contended that we don’t do the bad. Religion is standing up against the bad and evil and not just standing before God.