Kerala girl defies threats, wears jeans - not burqa
KASARGOD: An aeronautical engineer by qualification and preparing for the civil services exam, a 23-year-old Muslim girl here refuses to wear the burqa and often sports jeans despite constant threats to her life.
Rayana R. Khasi, a resident of Kasargod, has handed over the threat letters she received to the police.
Rayana has the full support of her family. She has had police protection since Aug 17, thanks to a court order, after increased threats in the last two months.
'Is it not my right to decide what I should wear? I studied in Chennai and now I am preparing for my civil service examinations. It is for convenience that I use jeans and I have covered everything that has to be fully covered,' a peeved Rayana told IANS.
She spoke to IANS just after a visit to the local police station to hand over two anonymous letters saying she would be killed if she continued to defy the burqa.
Trouble started after her return from Chennai around this time last year. She was in Chennai for four and a half years to complete her aeronautical engineering course and then stayed on for six more months for civil services exam coaching.
When she came back, first there were polite pleas from her relatives to wear the traditional Muslim attire.
'Then my neighbours started advising me and since then there have had anonymous callers on my mobile telling me they will have no choice but to kill me because I continue to defy the burqa,' said Rayana.
Rayana is unfazed as she has the complete support of her parents and four younger sisters.
'My father is a businessman and when he is short of money, it is my mother who comes to his help by giving her gold ornaments. And that is when she resorts to wearing the burqa so that no one can see that she doesn't have her jewellery!
'My sisters also support me because they know I have not done any wrong,' said Rayana, who has Malayalam and geography as subjects in her final exam.
Balakrishnan, the Kasargod police station circle inspector, said: 'She has handed over the letters to us and we have begun investigations.
'We are unable to trace the callers who call from private numbers. Now she has given one number from which she received a threat call and in the next one or two days we will trace the caller and action will be taken,' said Balakrishnan.
Balakrishnan however said they have nothing to prove that the callers belong to the Popular Front of India (PFI), a radical Muslim outfit that has been in the news for chopping off the palm of a college teacher in Muvattupuzha.
Rayana is putting up a brave face. Despite constant threats in the last two months, she is trying her best to concentrate on her studies for the examination next month.
Courtesy: Kerala Kumudi
Only if the Knanaya men had 1/4th of the guts of this 23-year old Rayana to not succumb to what boils down to mind-control of the weak and the unintelligent by the dastardly religious monsters. When the Knas keep building churches - not for a "Savior" whose parable spoke of a "stable" and a trek down the mountain side and beaches in simple sandals - they are, de facto, endorsing the delusions of their evil twin with a mind that is more barren than the desert terrains of their origins!
If Knanaya men had 1/4th of the intellectual merit of Rayana, they would not have been the laughing stock of the men in robes in the Aramanas, for the robewallas know that the vanity of these deluded men who claim "royal lineage" to the fable of some poor Bedouin shepherd (David) will yield to anything that would massage their outsized egos.
Rayana's strength is her intelligence that can see through the nonsense of control wished upon her by some illiterate hoodlums masquerading as PFI. Where is the intelligence of the Knanaya men to help them rise above the mediocrity of their faculties that are threatened by nothing like that faces a 23-year old bright girl who is treading the fine line of being murdered? What are we up in arms about and celebrating in our glorified, stupid conventions? Documented versus Undocumented Lies?
Rayana's moral strength and intellectual convictions put the Knanaya community at par with PFI - from Chicago to NY to Houston to Dallas, the prime North American madrassas. One cannot but be inspired by Rayana, and in reflection but lament the intellectual and moral poverty of this community called Knas.
Cyril
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Ground Zero : The proposed Islamic Center
People like Mr. Feisal Rauf reveal the "street face" of Islam. If his intention is to "build bridges" to narrow the chasm of misunderstandings about Islam and be a "peace-maker", what needs to be done is very simple: listen to the people who do not want this building there; respect their sensitivity over this matter; comply and move to another location. He will have done all he claims he wants to do to make Islam understood in the right light.
No. He is Islam's extremist face. Move it, and he cites "national security" concerns. This is a threat couched as "concern". In the face of opposition, he is obtuse to the sensitivity of people who hurt over the 9/11 events rejoiced by his "misunderstood" Islam. Furthermore, he is insistent that it be built as per current plans for otherwise, the "extremists will have won": really? Why not show his extremist colleagues that accommodation based on the will of the majority is a better gradient of the worth of faith than his toeing the line which continues to embody its dogma, "My way or the highway"?
What was more telling was his questioning the "sacredness" of the area: to him it cannot be sacred because of the "strip joints" in the area! How telling! And, how typical of his faith that he should miss the boat totally on what is "sacred" about Ground Zero and should be riled by the thought of female nudity which challenges his traditional views on the role of females, not beyond worthy of being stoned!
Florida's Jones may be called "crazy": but he is refreshingly honest about how the majority of America feels, and if their sentiments get respected and represented, all credit goes to Mr. Jones, and not to a single American politician
No. He is Islam's extremist face. Move it, and he cites "national security" concerns. This is a threat couched as "concern". In the face of opposition, he is obtuse to the sensitivity of people who hurt over the 9/11 events rejoiced by his "misunderstood" Islam. Furthermore, he is insistent that it be built as per current plans for otherwise, the "extremists will have won": really? Why not show his extremist colleagues that accommodation based on the will of the majority is a better gradient of the worth of faith than his toeing the line which continues to embody its dogma, "My way or the highway"?
What was more telling was his questioning the "sacredness" of the area: to him it cannot be sacred because of the "strip joints" in the area! How telling! And, how typical of his faith that he should miss the boat totally on what is "sacred" about Ground Zero and should be riled by the thought of female nudity which challenges his traditional views on the role of females, not beyond worthy of being stoned!
Florida's Jones may be called "crazy": but he is refreshingly honest about how the majority of America feels, and if their sentiments get respected and represented, all credit goes to Mr. Jones, and not to a single American politician
Monday, July 26, 2010
Travelling Light: An unshackled past for an unencumbered future
It appears that the American experience of the Malayalee youth is often a poorly understood or misunderstood phenomenon. Most views on such an experience are skewed, couching a view that there is something less than
wholesome about the adopted culture relative to that which was left behind. The zeal that spills over the remnants as seen in the rear-view mirror invokes an imagery of Kerala that is a far cry from the idyllic portrait it is framed in.
This once pristine State, I am afraid, is much less of “God’s own” as seen in the throw-away commercialization its streets have come to bear as emblematic of its (mistaken) stake in a progressive economy. Migration to greener pastures is very much the history of humans not unlike their evolutionary journey itself. These are not mutually exclusive. The osmotic like effect of better prospects will always draw people to that which
attracts them. In fact, there is something laudable to be said about those who undertake to leave behind the comfort and security of what is known, and venture into the many unknowns of a new country virtually blindfolded.
For most it is an instance of déjà vu, having to build their lives all over again: no small task.
Our own history crossed an ocean to touch the shores of Kundangaloor. Our ancestors adapted to their new home surroundings in such a way that today, we, the descendants, will be stranger than strangers in the very land our forefathers left over 1600 years ago. Why then should the outcome of such immigration be any different for those who have ended up in the US (or elsewhere in the world)? To lament the loss of the Malayalee identity of the youth in the US (the country that I will exemplify for the purposes of this article) is to undermine the very evolutionary intelligence of adaptation. The survival of the fittest meant not brawny traits (which, of course, won’t hurt) but the cognitive ability to converge successfully to changed and new environments. This is the historical success of the human species; this was our success in Kudangaloor, and this should be the benchmark for those in the US.
Again, there are those who use broad brush-strokes to paint a picture
of the typical Malayalee economic refugees, their new found wealth and
the ostentatious display of such as edified through mansions. Perhaps,
such egocentric and short-sighted endeavours are a blemish on the
Malayalee character. However, there are Malayalee cultural refugees as
well who chose to migrate from Kerala and other parts of the world to the
USA. This group migrated for reasons that had little to do with money, but
for reasons that upheld life for its qualitative aspects as embodied in the
spirit of the Statue of Liberty standing lofty and tall on Stanton Island, off the shores of New York. But, they are a convenient oversight in favour of the more generic caricature that the former group is, complete with the
sensationalist tabloid elements almost assuring readership.
Going back to the point of “lost” identity, the flip-side of this issue is
the general Malayalee reluctance to blend in with the society of their
adopted home country such as in the USA. Outside of the immediate work
environment, there is little desire or initiative for co-mingling and socially interacting or integrating with the larger society around them, thereby creating ghettos of “Little Keralas”. If this is considered to be some valuepreservation strategy, then the ABCDs are the best there is to show for it. The rather ludicrous dichotomy of this situation is that these very Malayalees are such ardent Keralites in the US, but all-American when in Kerala!
The “roots factor” is one thing. This is almost like the genetic imprinting
that is hardwired into our brain. This factor will show up in our
subconscious choices, awareness, preferences and likings. However, the
higher cortex of our brain is what helps us adapt to new environments
and situations for our successful transition and “survival” in Darwinian
terms. Such adaptive changes are inevitable and intractable. One may
choose to enshrine Kerala in the USA, but beyond a touch of sentimentality,
this may become dysfunctional. A confused parent can only engender a confused child. Parents who see some inexplicable merit in having Kerala
youth in the US hold on to a past of his/her parents, has to be a matter of
more than fleeting concern. Such past is of little consequence to the youth, unless there is a volitional and conscious choice on the part of the
youth to embrace it.
While the past of the parents may be meaningful for the parents themselves, to force it upon their children is a great disservice to the youth. There are cases of parents who pack their US bred kids off to high schools and universities in India for some “social” and moral” reasons. This is yet another instance of the imposition of the parents’ rather
circumscribed and biased perspective on life as seen through the kaleidoscope of their own past. Nothing could be more harmful to those kids, for they are forced into a split-personality trait, in schizophrenic fashion, which then gets fondly referred to as ABCD!
This is a world where the Berlin Wall has come to be a mere metaphor for an ideological divide. To be successful in China, some fluency in Mandarin is deemed an advantage. Saki may make greater in-road in Japan than a
choice single malt scotch. “Jai Ho” has already become a trademark
salutation for western communications to and fro India. It is time for us in Kerala to step outside of our little boxes with our rather outdated and subjective moralistic prescriptions where our past and history are given carte blanche immunity of unchallenged virtue, which when misquoted, often
become a burden - instead of an asset - on the journeys we have embarked for ourselves and our youth.
History without context is like packing one’s suitcase with woollies for an African safari!
wholesome about the adopted culture relative to that which was left behind. The zeal that spills over the remnants as seen in the rear-view mirror invokes an imagery of Kerala that is a far cry from the idyllic portrait it is framed in.
This once pristine State, I am afraid, is much less of “God’s own” as seen in the throw-away commercialization its streets have come to bear as emblematic of its (mistaken) stake in a progressive economy. Migration to greener pastures is very much the history of humans not unlike their evolutionary journey itself. These are not mutually exclusive. The osmotic like effect of better prospects will always draw people to that which
attracts them. In fact, there is something laudable to be said about those who undertake to leave behind the comfort and security of what is known, and venture into the many unknowns of a new country virtually blindfolded.
For most it is an instance of déjà vu, having to build their lives all over again: no small task.
Our own history crossed an ocean to touch the shores of Kundangaloor. Our ancestors adapted to their new home surroundings in such a way that today, we, the descendants, will be stranger than strangers in the very land our forefathers left over 1600 years ago. Why then should the outcome of such immigration be any different for those who have ended up in the US (or elsewhere in the world)? To lament the loss of the Malayalee identity of the youth in the US (the country that I will exemplify for the purposes of this article) is to undermine the very evolutionary intelligence of adaptation. The survival of the fittest meant not brawny traits (which, of course, won’t hurt) but the cognitive ability to converge successfully to changed and new environments. This is the historical success of the human species; this was our success in Kudangaloor, and this should be the benchmark for those in the US.
Again, there are those who use broad brush-strokes to paint a picture
of the typical Malayalee economic refugees, their new found wealth and
the ostentatious display of such as edified through mansions. Perhaps,
such egocentric and short-sighted endeavours are a blemish on the
Malayalee character. However, there are Malayalee cultural refugees as
well who chose to migrate from Kerala and other parts of the world to the
USA. This group migrated for reasons that had little to do with money, but
for reasons that upheld life for its qualitative aspects as embodied in the
spirit of the Statue of Liberty standing lofty and tall on Stanton Island, off the shores of New York. But, they are a convenient oversight in favour of the more generic caricature that the former group is, complete with the
sensationalist tabloid elements almost assuring readership.
Going back to the point of “lost” identity, the flip-side of this issue is
the general Malayalee reluctance to blend in with the society of their
adopted home country such as in the USA. Outside of the immediate work
environment, there is little desire or initiative for co-mingling and socially interacting or integrating with the larger society around them, thereby creating ghettos of “Little Keralas”. If this is considered to be some valuepreservation strategy, then the ABCDs are the best there is to show for it. The rather ludicrous dichotomy of this situation is that these very Malayalees are such ardent Keralites in the US, but all-American when in Kerala!
The “roots factor” is one thing. This is almost like the genetic imprinting
that is hardwired into our brain. This factor will show up in our
subconscious choices, awareness, preferences and likings. However, the
higher cortex of our brain is what helps us adapt to new environments
and situations for our successful transition and “survival” in Darwinian
terms. Such adaptive changes are inevitable and intractable. One may
choose to enshrine Kerala in the USA, but beyond a touch of sentimentality,
this may become dysfunctional. A confused parent can only engender a confused child. Parents who see some inexplicable merit in having Kerala
youth in the US hold on to a past of his/her parents, has to be a matter of
more than fleeting concern. Such past is of little consequence to the youth, unless there is a volitional and conscious choice on the part of the
youth to embrace it.
While the past of the parents may be meaningful for the parents themselves, to force it upon their children is a great disservice to the youth. There are cases of parents who pack their US bred kids off to high schools and universities in India for some “social” and moral” reasons. This is yet another instance of the imposition of the parents’ rather
circumscribed and biased perspective on life as seen through the kaleidoscope of their own past. Nothing could be more harmful to those kids, for they are forced into a split-personality trait, in schizophrenic fashion, which then gets fondly referred to as ABCD!
This is a world where the Berlin Wall has come to be a mere metaphor for an ideological divide. To be successful in China, some fluency in Mandarin is deemed an advantage. Saki may make greater in-road in Japan than a
choice single malt scotch. “Jai Ho” has already become a trademark
salutation for western communications to and fro India. It is time for us in Kerala to step outside of our little boxes with our rather outdated and subjective moralistic prescriptions where our past and history are given carte blanche immunity of unchallenged virtue, which when misquoted, often
become a burden - instead of an asset - on the journeys we have embarked for ourselves and our youth.
History without context is like packing one’s suitcase with woollies for an African safari!
Illusory Values
“This world is an illusion”, we have been told from the pulpits of the churches. But, unbeknown to most, what the pontifications did was to substitute and/or endorse one illusion for another which, in this case, was the illusion of religion itself. While religion reigns right at the top of illusive notions, there is a host of “values” that are just as
unhinged from its simplest logical mooring. It belies the most rudimentary intelligence to see those “values” inflame passions for which men even spill blood.
“Values”, after all, are nothing more than “symbols”. And symbols are just that: symbolic. If symbols merely represent something, then the symbols in and of themselves are of little value. Yet, some of the biggest crimes against humanity are committed over “symbols”. This would be like substituting the symbolic wedding ring for the complex dynamics of a marriage.
Your very birth is a “chance” event. The wealth you are born into or the lack of it is mere chance; your ethnicity, your nationality, your culture, your faith, your language and your DNA attributes are all a constellation of synchronous and sequential “chance” events. Whether you drive a Cadillac or a bullock cart, is chance. Despite all this, the core “identity” you represent at the cellular level is hardly distinct or
different from another set of genetic markers. All human beings are 99.9% of common genetic make-up. So what are the differences we fight over, we
discriminate about, assign blue and commoner lineages, and invest and divest superiority and special privileges?
“Chance” means something not earned. Inheritance makes you a passive recipient and, therefore, your contribution is zero. Your faith is what your parents followed. Then what is this chest-thumping claim you bear to some “sole truth” you “chanced” upon? What makes the “truth” of your counterpart, say, in Tibet less so than yours? Is it not just as plausible that you are deluded and that your Tibetan brother or sister may have a leg
up on you? The point here is that there is a full-blown industry built
around faith notions. They all claim to know the truth as only known to
them. Consider this simple scenario: you will not put a foreign student who is just beginning to learn English compete alongside one who has graduate-level proficiency; would you? Then why would an all-knowing god give the unfair advantage of a head-start to the Pearly Gates to some purely based on “chance” and deny others such advantage? What does this say about those zealot Christians running around to convert people for “salvation”, and the Muslims calling all non-Muslims infidels? From where do these people derive their special legitimacy and subsume such
divination that others are not privy to?
The answer lies in the DSM IV psychiatric diagnosis, Delusions of Grandeur. It is a psychosis. And then there is a whole lot of “chance” factors around which people ground themselves into unrelenting and unforgiving positions. Honour killings: a barbaric act that seeks to
soothe a bruised family ego for the personal choice a member makes in
response to the natural and biologic neurotransmitter signals from the
brain. These are the very impulses that have sustained life on this planet
for the past several millions of years.
I guess the power of such evolutionary processes mean nothing to the
barbarians. What matters more to them, apparently, is the “honour”: one
that constitutes artificially created class statuses, distorted wealth
concepts, suppressed emotional and intellectual processes, and often
competing and divergent illusory faith matters that are deemed incompatible
with the family’s own delusions!
Another set of “values” bear the stamp of personification of economic
and lifestyle agendas. These exude the ubiquitous seductive appeal to
citizenry as conceived and promoted by governments and business
corporations. It has practically destroyed North America; India is fast
hurtling down the lane of self-immolation as deceived by the illusory
“prosperity” indices of GDP. Has anyone paused for a moment to consider how the truly enlightened ancient civilizations of Indus Valley and Mohenjodaro would have rated themselves without the benefit of these economic formulas? If the Native Americans took it upon themselves to evaluate the impact of every single socio-economic decision they made for up to seven future generations before implementing them, what kind of relevancy would GDP indices have carried with them? GDP means consumption at the cost of conservatory and preservative values, where the growth chart would a CEO’s erotic dream of an ever expanding trend right out of the Big Bang Theory!
What, then, are values that are not illusory? The answer is simple: knowledge of your true self and its through-put with untainted integrity resulting in outcomes that are true to the nature of your spiritual self.
What obfuscate this rather simple matter are the distortions we are
surrounded with right from our birth. These distortions clog every single
neural pathway with white-noises that are nothing but lies; yes, BIG LIES.
The religious membership and identity we are given at birth are nothing but
a North American equivalent of the Sam’s Club or Costco superstore card. Every new member, just as in the case of the superstores, assures the financial and business viability of the religious organization the member
is affiliated with. Those in leadership are dream merchants themselves not
unlike those in Hollywood and Bollywood though with the critical
difference that the latter group claims no divine attributes to the fictitious nature of their stories. Then there is the social hive with its many compartments that place us in a host of little combs. It is not easy to cross the dividing lines here unless the great leveler – wealth – cuts through the barriers with diplomatic immunity. Then there are the social norms with sub-classifications as would apply to communities with their own book of rules defining customs and traditions within the larger society. Crossing these is taboo resulting in a range of punitive measures from excommunication on the lighter side to being targeted for “honour” killing on the more sinister side.
Whose honour? Defined by whom and in violation of what? Don’t expect
answers that might prompt you to go,“Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” In
most instances you would be left utterly baffled by an explanation that
will make Jonah’s survival in the belly of a whale for three days more
believable than the chemical composition of water = H2O!
Then there are these racial and ethnic stereotyping to be contended with,
amongst all of which your true,authentic and distinct self gets as
unrecognizable as your reflection over rippling waters. If the quality of life is measured by your intrinsic worth as a human being with the ultimate goal of selfactualization as elucidated by Maslow, illusory values cannot be a part of the process.
True spirituality is counterintuitive to stagnation, for spiritual energy is light and free-flowing where as stagnation is like a puddle that is
muddied and lifeless. What the “modern” world has lost is this true
understanding of spirituality. The “ancient” world, in their effort to
reason our place in the universe, came up with abstracts such as “Ohm” and “Brahma”. By this they were light-years ahead of us. We, in our severely damaged and unimaginative evolutionary state, have now come to be symbolized by the likes of the Korean Kim Jong Il, the Iranian Ahmadinejad,
the Indian Pramod Mutalik and the American, Sarah Palin, each representing any number of illusory values under the common dunce cap labeled, ignoramus.
I will end this article by citing two Native American Indian statements:
one, a proverb and the other a prophecy. The Native Indian civilization is dated to be around 20,000 years old; however, the question is whether they are the true archetypes for what is “progressive and visionary” wisdom
embodying spiritual enlightenment, or it is us, in the 21st century, with
claims to higher knowledge by calling out from minarets and sitting in splendorous robes under the domes adorning Michelangelo’s masterful paintings, and merely think and therefore we are (to be enlightened and progressive)?
- Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents; it was
loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the earth from our
Ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
(Native Indian proverb)
- Only after the last tree has been cut down; only after the last river has been poisoned; only after the last fish has been caught; only then you will find that money cannot be eaten.
(Cree prophecy)
Those ancient Native Americans said: “Mitakuye Oyasin” (We are all related). What they knew in their ancient wisdom continues to elude us for we are caught in the quicksand of illusory values. The white noises jar our
aural pathways; the distortions blur our views; the lies impinge upon our
objectivity. Life is not an illusion unless we make it one.
unhinged from its simplest logical mooring. It belies the most rudimentary intelligence to see those “values” inflame passions for which men even spill blood.
“Values”, after all, are nothing more than “symbols”. And symbols are just that: symbolic. If symbols merely represent something, then the symbols in and of themselves are of little value. Yet, some of the biggest crimes against humanity are committed over “symbols”. This would be like substituting the symbolic wedding ring for the complex dynamics of a marriage.
Your very birth is a “chance” event. The wealth you are born into or the lack of it is mere chance; your ethnicity, your nationality, your culture, your faith, your language and your DNA attributes are all a constellation of synchronous and sequential “chance” events. Whether you drive a Cadillac or a bullock cart, is chance. Despite all this, the core “identity” you represent at the cellular level is hardly distinct or
different from another set of genetic markers. All human beings are 99.9% of common genetic make-up. So what are the differences we fight over, we
discriminate about, assign blue and commoner lineages, and invest and divest superiority and special privileges?
“Chance” means something not earned. Inheritance makes you a passive recipient and, therefore, your contribution is zero. Your faith is what your parents followed. Then what is this chest-thumping claim you bear to some “sole truth” you “chanced” upon? What makes the “truth” of your counterpart, say, in Tibet less so than yours? Is it not just as plausible that you are deluded and that your Tibetan brother or sister may have a leg
up on you? The point here is that there is a full-blown industry built
around faith notions. They all claim to know the truth as only known to
them. Consider this simple scenario: you will not put a foreign student who is just beginning to learn English compete alongside one who has graduate-level proficiency; would you? Then why would an all-knowing god give the unfair advantage of a head-start to the Pearly Gates to some purely based on “chance” and deny others such advantage? What does this say about those zealot Christians running around to convert people for “salvation”, and the Muslims calling all non-Muslims infidels? From where do these people derive their special legitimacy and subsume such
divination that others are not privy to?
The answer lies in the DSM IV psychiatric diagnosis, Delusions of Grandeur. It is a psychosis. And then there is a whole lot of “chance” factors around which people ground themselves into unrelenting and unforgiving positions. Honour killings: a barbaric act that seeks to
soothe a bruised family ego for the personal choice a member makes in
response to the natural and biologic neurotransmitter signals from the
brain. These are the very impulses that have sustained life on this planet
for the past several millions of years.
I guess the power of such evolutionary processes mean nothing to the
barbarians. What matters more to them, apparently, is the “honour”: one
that constitutes artificially created class statuses, distorted wealth
concepts, suppressed emotional and intellectual processes, and often
competing and divergent illusory faith matters that are deemed incompatible
with the family’s own delusions!
Another set of “values” bear the stamp of personification of economic
and lifestyle agendas. These exude the ubiquitous seductive appeal to
citizenry as conceived and promoted by governments and business
corporations. It has practically destroyed North America; India is fast
hurtling down the lane of self-immolation as deceived by the illusory
“prosperity” indices of GDP. Has anyone paused for a moment to consider how the truly enlightened ancient civilizations of Indus Valley and Mohenjodaro would have rated themselves without the benefit of these economic formulas? If the Native Americans took it upon themselves to evaluate the impact of every single socio-economic decision they made for up to seven future generations before implementing them, what kind of relevancy would GDP indices have carried with them? GDP means consumption at the cost of conservatory and preservative values, where the growth chart would a CEO’s erotic dream of an ever expanding trend right out of the Big Bang Theory!
What, then, are values that are not illusory? The answer is simple: knowledge of your true self and its through-put with untainted integrity resulting in outcomes that are true to the nature of your spiritual self.
What obfuscate this rather simple matter are the distortions we are
surrounded with right from our birth. These distortions clog every single
neural pathway with white-noises that are nothing but lies; yes, BIG LIES.
The religious membership and identity we are given at birth are nothing but
a North American equivalent of the Sam’s Club or Costco superstore card. Every new member, just as in the case of the superstores, assures the financial and business viability of the religious organization the member
is affiliated with. Those in leadership are dream merchants themselves not
unlike those in Hollywood and Bollywood though with the critical
difference that the latter group claims no divine attributes to the fictitious nature of their stories. Then there is the social hive with its many compartments that place us in a host of little combs. It is not easy to cross the dividing lines here unless the great leveler – wealth – cuts through the barriers with diplomatic immunity. Then there are the social norms with sub-classifications as would apply to communities with their own book of rules defining customs and traditions within the larger society. Crossing these is taboo resulting in a range of punitive measures from excommunication on the lighter side to being targeted for “honour” killing on the more sinister side.
Whose honour? Defined by whom and in violation of what? Don’t expect
answers that might prompt you to go,“Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” In
most instances you would be left utterly baffled by an explanation that
will make Jonah’s survival in the belly of a whale for three days more
believable than the chemical composition of water = H2O!
Then there are these racial and ethnic stereotyping to be contended with,
amongst all of which your true,authentic and distinct self gets as
unrecognizable as your reflection over rippling waters. If the quality of life is measured by your intrinsic worth as a human being with the ultimate goal of selfactualization as elucidated by Maslow, illusory values cannot be a part of the process.
True spirituality is counterintuitive to stagnation, for spiritual energy is light and free-flowing where as stagnation is like a puddle that is
muddied and lifeless. What the “modern” world has lost is this true
understanding of spirituality. The “ancient” world, in their effort to
reason our place in the universe, came up with abstracts such as “Ohm” and “Brahma”. By this they were light-years ahead of us. We, in our severely damaged and unimaginative evolutionary state, have now come to be symbolized by the likes of the Korean Kim Jong Il, the Iranian Ahmadinejad,
the Indian Pramod Mutalik and the American, Sarah Palin, each representing any number of illusory values under the common dunce cap labeled, ignoramus.
I will end this article by citing two Native American Indian statements:
one, a proverb and the other a prophecy. The Native Indian civilization is dated to be around 20,000 years old; however, the question is whether they are the true archetypes for what is “progressive and visionary” wisdom
embodying spiritual enlightenment, or it is us, in the 21st century, with
claims to higher knowledge by calling out from minarets and sitting in splendorous robes under the domes adorning Michelangelo’s masterful paintings, and merely think and therefore we are (to be enlightened and progressive)?
- Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents; it was
loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the earth from our
Ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
(Native Indian proverb)
- Only after the last tree has been cut down; only after the last river has been poisoned; only after the last fish has been caught; only then you will find that money cannot be eaten.
(Cree prophecy)
Those ancient Native Americans said: “Mitakuye Oyasin” (We are all related). What they knew in their ancient wisdom continues to elude us for we are caught in the quicksand of illusory values. The white noises jar our
aural pathways; the distortions blur our views; the lies impinge upon our
objectivity. Life is not an illusion unless we make it one.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Freedom to be a Kna
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so
experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings
of that precious gift. (Mahatma Gandhi). Another take on this topic from
Gandhi reads: Freedom is not worth having if it does not include
freedom to make mistakes.
The profundity of these statements is undeniably thought-provoking and inspiring. Its deceptive simplicity and brevity, however, belies a poignant ethical question that stares at us: do we, Knananites, measure up to being a free people?
I am afraid the answer is a resounding NO.
We are not free, for before we can “err”, we do not even allow for
what precedes it: “choice”. It should not be hard to see that the
freedom to “choose” is much higher on the rung of the ladder (of freedom) than the one to “err”. This means we have already stumbled from a higher rung itself with an “F” grade (in “freedom”). “Choice” is as fundamental to
humans as oxygen is to water and photosynthesis is to chlorophyll. It
is the right hemisphere of the brain to that of the left. Deny one, and
you have destroyed the whole. This is what we do to our youth. We deny them the “choice” before they can even “err” to begin with! Choice with conditions becomes an act of conformance; an act of appeasement. This makes the individual secondary to the society. The cost to the individual-self is hailed as “allegiance” and the deprivation of the “self” is
mischaracterized as the virtue of “selflessness”. Community tells you
to be proud of this.
Thus, we have the makings of a cultish, brainwashed group of robotic individuals who are only fit to take orders in the service of the elders.
If being born a Knananite becomes a liability that can jeopardize one’s standing in the community when making one of the most significant decisions in life – choosing a life-partner - then our birth is not unlike that of a slave born into the shackles awaiting him/her even prior to birth. The false argument presented in this regard is that endogamy is not “forced”. True, but the “unforced” is not without consequence. The counter claim to this is that the volitional act is undertaken by the transgressor with full knowledge of the consequences.
This distorted logic leads the community to believe that it is gleefully indemnified of what befalls the transgressor by way of consequences.
Is this not like saying that the massacre at the Tiananmen Square
was predictable or avoidable? Or, that San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (The Iron Lady of Burma) should have known her fate when disobeying the Junta? Or, that Cassius Clay (Ali) should have complied with conscription (against his
will) so as not to lose his heavyweight title? Or, that Obama could have opted out of the campaign to avoid the rise in Neo-Nazi and racist rumblings? Or, that Mathew Sheppard could have hidden his gay orientation to avoid being impaled (to death) on a barb-wired fence?
What is the common-thread binding all these instances? It is the cry
and the impetus of the human spirit to stand for it believes in and aspires for, to reach its full potential by exercising the exhilarating freedom to be all that it can be, in the face of adversity, threat and even death. How can this indomitable human spirit be any different in a Knananite?
This is the very life-force that has seen man survive the early years of primordial hostility of the natural elements, and the pain exacted by evil in men in the Roman gladiatorial arenas, the Spanish Inquisitions, and
the Holocaust. After all, this human spirit knows no colour or creed, or artificial boundaries that seek to contain it.
Endogamy in and of itself is blamefree, but the consequences to those who do not conform are not without stain. There was a time and context when it mattered; when it made perfect sense. When the survival of a community with its faith-based way of life and social norms was besieged in Masada, and its sustentation against domination by opposing regimes and competing ideologies necessitated strength in numbers and group cohesiveness, endogamy proved to be an effective tool.
But today the invocation of the spirit of Masada is as relevant as expecting to catch a matinee of the murderous blood-bath at a gladiatorial arena when visiting Vatican. And so is today, the hold of the religious prescriptions that is essentially perfunctory based on the evolution of our own understanding of such matters.
Ironically, the threat here in this day and age emanates not so much from
any outside faith group as much as it does from the Church’s own failings
and its primitive ideologies. If endogamy sought to preserve, what has it preserved? Our lineage was not tamper-proof. Our unique culture is 100% Keralite. Our unique tradition comprises a couple of enactments at
weddings. We speak Malayalam and not Hebrew or Syrian or whatever it was
when we left the shores of Edessa. All other renowned endogamous
communities still retain their original tongue – the Parses, the Jews and the Arab communities.They have norms and traditions that are more substantive than the pretend show-and-tell posturing of the Knananites.
Yet, while those communities, with a lot more going for them, have come up with creative solutions to ensure the growth of their communities, we, despite our weak credentials, continue to be unrelenting in this respect. Why? Those of us in the West, enjoying its libertarian values and associated rights, should feel truly humbled by the privileges we have come to inherit without toil. Yet, what we bring to the table is our dusty baggage from the boat still docked at Kondungalloor.
Intellectually, we present the oxymoronic picture of arriving at a
western nightclub wearing a burqua: what we preach is untenable and out
of context and totally awkward. When we look into the future, the
present is but less than a nanosecond of our time in history. All we need to do is step out of our pretend mud houses and side-step the pretend camel
parked in the front (perhaps blocking our view) to see the time warp we are
caught in. Or, we can continue being as irrelevant as the Iranian clerics and their laughable proclamations. Those among us, who do not tire of making the claim that Knananites persevered over the past 1600 years, risk themselves being seen as having a very poor understanding of history itself.
While the “preservation” per se lies in audacious imagination than
anything factual for most of circa 345 CE to 1600 CE, whatever preserved was more circumstantial than anything that came out of some Akhashic wisdom. Those circumstantial conditions are simply vanishing.
Our youth are contending with realities that are totally out of sync
with the world their parents inhabited. You can make them relevant for the
times by empowering them to be in step and tune with the world around
them. Allow them to be their true selves – as defined by them and not
for them. To know that a healthy “self” is the most precious gift we can give our children - and not the burden of some sketchy entitlements that are best presumed and often artificial, impractical and unsustainable – is
the very first step in our own evolution.
Let us not continue to deprive our youth anymore. The future is what we create and pave for today: it is not something that we accidentally walk into or awaits us. Visionaries provide for it; enable it. Myopia sets us on a collision course with the brick wall that we chose to build for us.
We have the power to create a safe passage through that very wall, or we can witness the fait accompli of the Berlin Wall that tried to uphold far
more powerful ideologies.
Now, we have the freedom to choose. This choice is made in the present;
its legacy will be what the future sees in its rearview mirror. This will
be our gift to our future-selves, and we shall bear no more the ignominy of repressing the human spirit that we never ever owned, nor will we, ever.
It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so
experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings
of that precious gift. (Mahatma Gandhi). Another take on this topic from
Gandhi reads: Freedom is not worth having if it does not include
freedom to make mistakes.
The profundity of these statements is undeniably thought-provoking and inspiring. Its deceptive simplicity and brevity, however, belies a poignant ethical question that stares at us: do we, Knananites, measure up to being a free people?
I am afraid the answer is a resounding NO.
We are not free, for before we can “err”, we do not even allow for
what precedes it: “choice”. It should not be hard to see that the
freedom to “choose” is much higher on the rung of the ladder (of freedom) than the one to “err”. This means we have already stumbled from a higher rung itself with an “F” grade (in “freedom”). “Choice” is as fundamental to
humans as oxygen is to water and photosynthesis is to chlorophyll. It
is the right hemisphere of the brain to that of the left. Deny one, and
you have destroyed the whole. This is what we do to our youth. We deny them the “choice” before they can even “err” to begin with! Choice with conditions becomes an act of conformance; an act of appeasement. This makes the individual secondary to the society. The cost to the individual-self is hailed as “allegiance” and the deprivation of the “self” is
mischaracterized as the virtue of “selflessness”. Community tells you
to be proud of this.
Thus, we have the makings of a cultish, brainwashed group of robotic individuals who are only fit to take orders in the service of the elders.
If being born a Knananite becomes a liability that can jeopardize one’s standing in the community when making one of the most significant decisions in life – choosing a life-partner - then our birth is not unlike that of a slave born into the shackles awaiting him/her even prior to birth. The false argument presented in this regard is that endogamy is not “forced”. True, but the “unforced” is not without consequence. The counter claim to this is that the volitional act is undertaken by the transgressor with full knowledge of the consequences.
This distorted logic leads the community to believe that it is gleefully indemnified of what befalls the transgressor by way of consequences.
Is this not like saying that the massacre at the Tiananmen Square
was predictable or avoidable? Or, that San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (The Iron Lady of Burma) should have known her fate when disobeying the Junta? Or, that Cassius Clay (Ali) should have complied with conscription (against his
will) so as not to lose his heavyweight title? Or, that Obama could have opted out of the campaign to avoid the rise in Neo-Nazi and racist rumblings? Or, that Mathew Sheppard could have hidden his gay orientation to avoid being impaled (to death) on a barb-wired fence?
What is the common-thread binding all these instances? It is the cry
and the impetus of the human spirit to stand for it believes in and aspires for, to reach its full potential by exercising the exhilarating freedom to be all that it can be, in the face of adversity, threat and even death. How can this indomitable human spirit be any different in a Knananite?
This is the very life-force that has seen man survive the early years of primordial hostility of the natural elements, and the pain exacted by evil in men in the Roman gladiatorial arenas, the Spanish Inquisitions, and
the Holocaust. After all, this human spirit knows no colour or creed, or artificial boundaries that seek to contain it.
Endogamy in and of itself is blamefree, but the consequences to those who do not conform are not without stain. There was a time and context when it mattered; when it made perfect sense. When the survival of a community with its faith-based way of life and social norms was besieged in Masada, and its sustentation against domination by opposing regimes and competing ideologies necessitated strength in numbers and group cohesiveness, endogamy proved to be an effective tool.
But today the invocation of the spirit of Masada is as relevant as expecting to catch a matinee of the murderous blood-bath at a gladiatorial arena when visiting Vatican. And so is today, the hold of the religious prescriptions that is essentially perfunctory based on the evolution of our own understanding of such matters.
Ironically, the threat here in this day and age emanates not so much from
any outside faith group as much as it does from the Church’s own failings
and its primitive ideologies. If endogamy sought to preserve, what has it preserved? Our lineage was not tamper-proof. Our unique culture is 100% Keralite. Our unique tradition comprises a couple of enactments at
weddings. We speak Malayalam and not Hebrew or Syrian or whatever it was
when we left the shores of Edessa. All other renowned endogamous
communities still retain their original tongue – the Parses, the Jews and the Arab communities.They have norms and traditions that are more substantive than the pretend show-and-tell posturing of the Knananites.
Yet, while those communities, with a lot more going for them, have come up with creative solutions to ensure the growth of their communities, we, despite our weak credentials, continue to be unrelenting in this respect. Why? Those of us in the West, enjoying its libertarian values and associated rights, should feel truly humbled by the privileges we have come to inherit without toil. Yet, what we bring to the table is our dusty baggage from the boat still docked at Kondungalloor.
Intellectually, we present the oxymoronic picture of arriving at a
western nightclub wearing a burqua: what we preach is untenable and out
of context and totally awkward. When we look into the future, the
present is but less than a nanosecond of our time in history. All we need to do is step out of our pretend mud houses and side-step the pretend camel
parked in the front (perhaps blocking our view) to see the time warp we are
caught in. Or, we can continue being as irrelevant as the Iranian clerics and their laughable proclamations. Those among us, who do not tire of making the claim that Knananites persevered over the past 1600 years, risk themselves being seen as having a very poor understanding of history itself.
While the “preservation” per se lies in audacious imagination than
anything factual for most of circa 345 CE to 1600 CE, whatever preserved was more circumstantial than anything that came out of some Akhashic wisdom. Those circumstantial conditions are simply vanishing.
Our youth are contending with realities that are totally out of sync
with the world their parents inhabited. You can make them relevant for the
times by empowering them to be in step and tune with the world around
them. Allow them to be their true selves – as defined by them and not
for them. To know that a healthy “self” is the most precious gift we can give our children - and not the burden of some sketchy entitlements that are best presumed and often artificial, impractical and unsustainable – is
the very first step in our own evolution.
Let us not continue to deprive our youth anymore. The future is what we create and pave for today: it is not something that we accidentally walk into or awaits us. Visionaries provide for it; enable it. Myopia sets us on a collision course with the brick wall that we chose to build for us.
We have the power to create a safe passage through that very wall, or we can witness the fait accompli of the Berlin Wall that tried to uphold far
more powerful ideologies.
Now, we have the freedom to choose. This choice is made in the present;
its legacy will be what the future sees in its rearview mirror. This will
be our gift to our future-selves, and we shall bear no more the ignominy of repressing the human spirit that we never ever owned, nor will we, ever.
The Student's Prayer
Don’t impose on me what you know
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation;
Your wisdom my negation.
Don’t instruct me; let’s walk together.
Let my riches begin where yours ends.
Show me so that I can stand on your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different.
You believe that every human being
Can love and create.
I understand, then, your fear
When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.
You will not know who I am
By listening to yourself.
Don’t instruct me; let me be.
Your failure is that I be identical to you.
This prayer written by Humberto Maturana’s son was the basis of an
article by Dr. Scaria Zacharia in Bilathi Malayalee (November 2009 issue), explaining the core sentiments at the heart of the poem. This poem, as I see it, has a 3-dimensional quality to it:
1. The dimension of “tension” within teaching and learning as elucidated by Dr. Zacharia.
2. The dimension of “spirituality” that is truer of a prayer than most prayers, and
3. The dimension of “life philosophy” embodying the quality of wisdom which is just as substantive as that of Krishna’s to Arjuna.
I will extrapolate the latter two dimensions as an adjuvant to the implicit contention around teaching and learning.
Dimension 2:
What is a typical “prayer?” It is one that asks for provisions that are believed to contribute to life’s security and safety; for assurances that make life’s challenges a tad easier to tackle, and for wishes and desires to be granted in the hope of improved beneficence. It parlays into gratitude that which is received. It is a memo to a superior boss who needs to be kept pleased. But look at the following lines:
Don’t impose on me what you know, I want to explore the unknown and be the source of my own discoveries. Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery. The world of your truth can be my limitation; your wisdom my negation. Don’t instruct me, let’s walk together.
There isn’t a prayer more authentic. There isn’t a prayer more powerful than what discovery yields from a “spiritual journey”. This is counterintuitive to what most of us do in the name of faith: we are spiritually passive, robotic and unenlightened and dispirited. Jesus, the historical figure, lived this “prayer”. He was not the Essene who left Palestine when he returned after this sojourn – the physical and spiritual journey he undertook – across Asia Minor and India. He learned from the Vedas and the Buddhist teachings. Even the “mythic” Christ was transformative as he traversed the spiritual domain of the Egyptians in Alexandria, the cross-currents of the Christos embedded in the Grecian Norse mythologies, and the Krishna-avatar in India. Transformation, therefore, is liberation, and stagnation, slavery. Judaic Laws and teachings bore limitations that the historic Jesus wanted improved
upon. The Judaic “wisdom” was His “negation” which he chose to tweak and improve upon. He debated the instructions. His explorative discourses sought liberation from the known and the limitations that came with what was foretold. True “prayer”, then, is your own discoveries arrived at through your active pursuit of wisdom beyond the confines of the binders in book form and that which is imposed upon you by others based on, perhaps, what they do not know.
Dimension 3:
When a teacher teaches, the lessons imparted are meant to bring the student a measure of understanding of the world as understood by the teacher so that his/her disciple carries forward his/her learning for the greater betterment of his/her life and the lives of those touched by him/her. It is the “Pay It Forward” principle: paying forward is cumulative in its effect. What is cumulative, therefore, has to be more than what it started off with. It gathers proportion and momentum with each passing; hence, Let my richness begin where yours end. Show me so that I can be something different. You believe that every human being can love and create. I understand, then, your fear when I ask you to live according to your wisdom. You will not know who I am by listening to yourself. Don’t instruct me; let me be. Your failure is that I be identical to you.
Kabir Das wrote:
If God and teacher were standing in front of me
Whom should I pay obeisance?
I bow to my teacher
Who guided me to God.
If the role of teacher is so elevated, how much more superior is that of parents! The question, then, is: is what you model for your child devoid of double-talk so that, when asked, you don’t have to fear to live according to your wisdom (in which) you believe that every human being can love and create.
I would direct the same question to the men of religion in this community (Kna) on whom the lay men and women rely for moral guidance and direction: If you believe that every birth on this earth is in the image and spirit of God, would you then discriminate against what God brought together in contravention of your social prescriptions, thereby challenging God’s own will? Are the actions you undertake righteous for your children who see the dichotomy between what you preach and you do? Why do you impose on them what you know? Why do you allow the world of your truth (to) be (your child’s) limitation, (and) your wisdom (to be his/her) negation? The most profound lines here are the anguish-laden plea when the student prays: Reveal yourself so that I can be something different. You will not know who I am by listening to yourself. Don’t instruct me; let me be. Your failure is that I be identical to you.
The Student’s Prayer is a prescient admonishment primarily of the pedagogy, and inevitably by extension, of adults who are teachers in parent-form, and of religious practitioners and community leaders. There is no greater disservice done to a growing mind than distorting it with ignorance and biases from a past that is unrecognizable to the present. There is no greater harm done to the spirituality embodied in the discovery processes of life than to suffocate it by pre-cast molds of conformance that are somebody else’s choice.
I had raised this plea on behalf of the youth of this community in the September ’09 issue of Sneha Sandesham, Freedom to be a Knananite. The
spiritual domain of the human condition speaks a language sans words, yet one that is understood by people all across the globe. The variety in the
physical, linguistic and cultural manifestations is the celebratory colours not unlike the buoyant balloons at a party event. However, without the common element of air giving them buoyancy, they cease to be balloons. So are the humans without that “air” of spirituality. Indoctrination of minds is antithetical to nurturing; deprivation of opportunities dampens the ambers of life that will not know its true potential as a fire. Let me be: this prayer answered will be your most precious gift of life to your children.
William Wordsworth wrote, “The child is father of the man.”
Yes, it means that what we are as adults take birth from what we are as children. If intelligence and survival of the fittest translate to successful evolution and adaptation to renewing conditions, then let us not mold our children to be what Pink Floyd wrote, “Another brick in the wall”
LET THEM BE!
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation;
Your wisdom my negation.
Don’t instruct me; let’s walk together.
Let my riches begin where yours ends.
Show me so that I can stand on your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different.
You believe that every human being
Can love and create.
I understand, then, your fear
When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.
You will not know who I am
By listening to yourself.
Don’t instruct me; let me be.
Your failure is that I be identical to you.
This prayer written by Humberto Maturana’s son was the basis of an
article by Dr. Scaria Zacharia in Bilathi Malayalee (November 2009 issue), explaining the core sentiments at the heart of the poem. This poem, as I see it, has a 3-dimensional quality to it:
1. The dimension of “tension” within teaching and learning as elucidated by Dr. Zacharia.
2. The dimension of “spirituality” that is truer of a prayer than most prayers, and
3. The dimension of “life philosophy” embodying the quality of wisdom which is just as substantive as that of Krishna’s to Arjuna.
I will extrapolate the latter two dimensions as an adjuvant to the implicit contention around teaching and learning.
Dimension 2:
What is a typical “prayer?” It is one that asks for provisions that are believed to contribute to life’s security and safety; for assurances that make life’s challenges a tad easier to tackle, and for wishes and desires to be granted in the hope of improved beneficence. It parlays into gratitude that which is received. It is a memo to a superior boss who needs to be kept pleased. But look at the following lines:
Don’t impose on me what you know, I want to explore the unknown and be the source of my own discoveries. Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery. The world of your truth can be my limitation; your wisdom my negation. Don’t instruct me, let’s walk together.
There isn’t a prayer more authentic. There isn’t a prayer more powerful than what discovery yields from a “spiritual journey”. This is counterintuitive to what most of us do in the name of faith: we are spiritually passive, robotic and unenlightened and dispirited. Jesus, the historical figure, lived this “prayer”. He was not the Essene who left Palestine when he returned after this sojourn – the physical and spiritual journey he undertook – across Asia Minor and India. He learned from the Vedas and the Buddhist teachings. Even the “mythic” Christ was transformative as he traversed the spiritual domain of the Egyptians in Alexandria, the cross-currents of the Christos embedded in the Grecian Norse mythologies, and the Krishna-avatar in India. Transformation, therefore, is liberation, and stagnation, slavery. Judaic Laws and teachings bore limitations that the historic Jesus wanted improved
upon. The Judaic “wisdom” was His “negation” which he chose to tweak and improve upon. He debated the instructions. His explorative discourses sought liberation from the known and the limitations that came with what was foretold. True “prayer”, then, is your own discoveries arrived at through your active pursuit of wisdom beyond the confines of the binders in book form and that which is imposed upon you by others based on, perhaps, what they do not know.
Dimension 3:
When a teacher teaches, the lessons imparted are meant to bring the student a measure of understanding of the world as understood by the teacher so that his/her disciple carries forward his/her learning for the greater betterment of his/her life and the lives of those touched by him/her. It is the “Pay It Forward” principle: paying forward is cumulative in its effect. What is cumulative, therefore, has to be more than what it started off with. It gathers proportion and momentum with each passing; hence, Let my richness begin where yours end. Show me so that I can be something different. You believe that every human being can love and create. I understand, then, your fear when I ask you to live according to your wisdom. You will not know who I am by listening to yourself. Don’t instruct me; let me be. Your failure is that I be identical to you.
Kabir Das wrote:
If God and teacher were standing in front of me
Whom should I pay obeisance?
I bow to my teacher
Who guided me to God.
If the role of teacher is so elevated, how much more superior is that of parents! The question, then, is: is what you model for your child devoid of double-talk so that, when asked, you don’t have to fear to live according to your wisdom (in which) you believe that every human being can love and create.
I would direct the same question to the men of religion in this community (Kna) on whom the lay men and women rely for moral guidance and direction: If you believe that every birth on this earth is in the image and spirit of God, would you then discriminate against what God brought together in contravention of your social prescriptions, thereby challenging God’s own will? Are the actions you undertake righteous for your children who see the dichotomy between what you preach and you do? Why do you impose on them what you know? Why do you allow the world of your truth (to) be (your child’s) limitation, (and) your wisdom (to be his/her) negation? The most profound lines here are the anguish-laden plea when the student prays: Reveal yourself so that I can be something different. You will not know who I am by listening to yourself. Don’t instruct me; let me be. Your failure is that I be identical to you.
The Student’s Prayer is a prescient admonishment primarily of the pedagogy, and inevitably by extension, of adults who are teachers in parent-form, and of religious practitioners and community leaders. There is no greater disservice done to a growing mind than distorting it with ignorance and biases from a past that is unrecognizable to the present. There is no greater harm done to the spirituality embodied in the discovery processes of life than to suffocate it by pre-cast molds of conformance that are somebody else’s choice.
I had raised this plea on behalf of the youth of this community in the September ’09 issue of Sneha Sandesham, Freedom to be a Knananite. The
spiritual domain of the human condition speaks a language sans words, yet one that is understood by people all across the globe. The variety in the
physical, linguistic and cultural manifestations is the celebratory colours not unlike the buoyant balloons at a party event. However, without the common element of air giving them buoyancy, they cease to be balloons. So are the humans without that “air” of spirituality. Indoctrination of minds is antithetical to nurturing; deprivation of opportunities dampens the ambers of life that will not know its true potential as a fire. Let me be: this prayer answered will be your most precious gift of life to your children.
William Wordsworth wrote, “The child is father of the man.”
Yes, it means that what we are as adults take birth from what we are as children. If intelligence and survival of the fittest translate to successful evolution and adaptation to renewing conditions, then let us not mold our children to be what Pink Floyd wrote, “Another brick in the wall”
LET THEM BE!
Tabula Rasa
Tabula rasa in Latin means, “clean slate”. It denotes a mind similar to a child’s, undisturbed by experiences and impressions. It is a pure state, as upon birth. With growth and life encounters, we naturally lose the “clean state” status. Our brain’s neural pathways become imprinted with data and learning that are very much integral to our successful maturation processes. Ironic as it may sound, if that “clean state” is mistaken for a virtue, it brings us to a state called, “naiveté”. And, this is clearly undesirable as an adult. Sarah Palin (the US Republican VP candidate) and Carrie Prejean (a US beauty pageant contestant) were
heralded as the emerging new Republican brand. Their virtue was their views, which were tailor-made for Republican right-wing ideologies. Never mind, that those views held little merit or substance. When they spoke, anyone with more than 10 gray cells in his/her brain, shuddered. Palin, if victorious, would have been a heartbeat away from Presidency should the aging McCain have had to step aside. Prejean not only opposed gay marriage, but also sought to defend her breast augmentation by saying, “I did not see anything in the Bible where it said I should not get breast implants”. I have no doubt that she also checked the Bible before she, as a 17-year old, sent solo sex videos of herself to her then boyfriend.
Why, one cannot help wonder, are such people a perfect match for the Republican right-wing mindset? The answer is what brings us back to our caption: tabula rasa. Or better, a chronic case of “naiveté”.
Equally disturbing is the fact that such naiveté is greeted with great aplomb in the USA when the rest of the western world can only be dismayed at America’s indiscretions. However, past the initial dismay, the reason for it becomes less obscure once we clue into the making of a conservative mindset. A conservative mindset is born out of the adult state of tabula rasa, or naiveté. In the absence of well developed neural pathways of logic, such a mind is immature, defenseless and emotionally volatile. This is the type of mind that organized religions tap into with astounding success. In the absence of rationality, this mind is unyielding and stubborn, with a dense coating of anti-logic plaques making it disoriented to reason and context.
So, now we have an army of plaque-brained people who know exactly what
their God wants for the rest of the world: God is anti-gay/lesbian, period, let alone invest them with any rights; God is Jewish; God is
Muslim. He is male and hails from the Middle-East. He is partial to his “chosen” people, and if you didn’t get the drift, it makes the
rest of us just bit players with bit parts in the epic stories built around the lead actors from His chosen tribe. You are born into your faith because God chose you. Your neighbour, if of a different faith, obviously had no such luck of the draw. This God is in the blessed wafer bread and red wine; He is in Jerusalem, He is in Mecca. His son resurrected from death. His Prophet rode a white horse into the heavens.
His naïve and intellectually obtunded flock of people are in the service
of those desiring and wielding power from the churches and the minarets.
These power mongers are complicit with the State. Such collusion of the
priestly and the ruling classes has always been the standard modus
operandi from the time of recorded history. In recent history one such
collusion reared its ugliest head in what transpired between the Church in
Rome and the despicable tyrant called, Der Fuehrer. Jeff Sharlet is a journalist and a visiting research scholar at New York University’s Center for Religion and Media. His recent bestseller, The Family – The Secret Fundamentalism at the heart of American Power – is a terrifying view of the American right. Most Americans, who are not rightwing nuts, and the rest of the world, knew how wrong a choice Palin was. Yet, we are baffled by how a nightmare like her – who said that Africa was a country and could not cite even one magazine, one book, or one newspaper she had read, and touted her foreign policy experience as being able to see Russia from her window (that is, whenever she was not winking) – could have a bestseller even months before the actual book, Going Rogue, came out! The Family has the answer: all you need is a Bible thumping IQ of 40, and you are deemed eminently qualified to be in the American government.
The Family (just like the mafia) will do all it can to make the likes of Palin to be up and forefront, and to be their conduit to the higher echelons of legislative and policy making branches of the government to make America the Christian version of Taliban’s Afghanistan.
The fact is that even Mother Teresa was an outcast with the Roman
authorities because she refused to convert those whom she fed and
nursed. With her, a dying soul had his/her choice of faith to pray to as he/she took the last breath. Her “Jesus Prayers” easily morphed to
incorporate the name of Allah or any other name that the person
requested. She was the true face of universal spirituality and prayer: the
genuine ambassador for Spirituality without Borders!
When we get ensnared in a time warp of repressive intellectual and
emotional notions, what gets stoked are the superficial “feelings” that
disregard facts and context. This is precisely the mechanism described
in “mob psychology”. We are then, as adults, reduced to a state of tabula rasa. In our naivety, our baser instincts get exposed and exploited. We
reject what is righteous just as we did with Pontius Pilate. Ironically, the fundamentalists will crucify Him again. Mother Teresa had a prayer that
broke the barriers of race and creed, but we are told to be intolerant of those unlike us. Her Christian faith sought equity, but we seek pride in our separateness, and will seek special status from Rome to endorse our tabula rasa.
We mock Him again. Death would be His liberation this time, not
ours. The only question is, how long will it be before He reaches Golgotha, again? He shall not suffer any longer for our refusal to grow up.
heralded as the emerging new Republican brand. Their virtue was their views, which were tailor-made for Republican right-wing ideologies. Never mind, that those views held little merit or substance. When they spoke, anyone with more than 10 gray cells in his/her brain, shuddered. Palin, if victorious, would have been a heartbeat away from Presidency should the aging McCain have had to step aside. Prejean not only opposed gay marriage, but also sought to defend her breast augmentation by saying, “I did not see anything in the Bible where it said I should not get breast implants”. I have no doubt that she also checked the Bible before she, as a 17-year old, sent solo sex videos of herself to her then boyfriend.
Why, one cannot help wonder, are such people a perfect match for the Republican right-wing mindset? The answer is what brings us back to our caption: tabula rasa. Or better, a chronic case of “naiveté”.
Equally disturbing is the fact that such naiveté is greeted with great aplomb in the USA when the rest of the western world can only be dismayed at America’s indiscretions. However, past the initial dismay, the reason for it becomes less obscure once we clue into the making of a conservative mindset. A conservative mindset is born out of the adult state of tabula rasa, or naiveté. In the absence of well developed neural pathways of logic, such a mind is immature, defenseless and emotionally volatile. This is the type of mind that organized religions tap into with astounding success. In the absence of rationality, this mind is unyielding and stubborn, with a dense coating of anti-logic plaques making it disoriented to reason and context.
So, now we have an army of plaque-brained people who know exactly what
their God wants for the rest of the world: God is anti-gay/lesbian, period, let alone invest them with any rights; God is Jewish; God is
Muslim. He is male and hails from the Middle-East. He is partial to his “chosen” people, and if you didn’t get the drift, it makes the
rest of us just bit players with bit parts in the epic stories built around the lead actors from His chosen tribe. You are born into your faith because God chose you. Your neighbour, if of a different faith, obviously had no such luck of the draw. This God is in the blessed wafer bread and red wine; He is in Jerusalem, He is in Mecca. His son resurrected from death. His Prophet rode a white horse into the heavens.
His naïve and intellectually obtunded flock of people are in the service
of those desiring and wielding power from the churches and the minarets.
These power mongers are complicit with the State. Such collusion of the
priestly and the ruling classes has always been the standard modus
operandi from the time of recorded history. In recent history one such
collusion reared its ugliest head in what transpired between the Church in
Rome and the despicable tyrant called, Der Fuehrer. Jeff Sharlet is a journalist and a visiting research scholar at New York University’s Center for Religion and Media. His recent bestseller, The Family – The Secret Fundamentalism at the heart of American Power – is a terrifying view of the American right. Most Americans, who are not rightwing nuts, and the rest of the world, knew how wrong a choice Palin was. Yet, we are baffled by how a nightmare like her – who said that Africa was a country and could not cite even one magazine, one book, or one newspaper she had read, and touted her foreign policy experience as being able to see Russia from her window (that is, whenever she was not winking) – could have a bestseller even months before the actual book, Going Rogue, came out! The Family has the answer: all you need is a Bible thumping IQ of 40, and you are deemed eminently qualified to be in the American government.
The Family (just like the mafia) will do all it can to make the likes of Palin to be up and forefront, and to be their conduit to the higher echelons of legislative and policy making branches of the government to make America the Christian version of Taliban’s Afghanistan.
The fact is that even Mother Teresa was an outcast with the Roman
authorities because she refused to convert those whom she fed and
nursed. With her, a dying soul had his/her choice of faith to pray to as he/she took the last breath. Her “Jesus Prayers” easily morphed to
incorporate the name of Allah or any other name that the person
requested. She was the true face of universal spirituality and prayer: the
genuine ambassador for Spirituality without Borders!
When we get ensnared in a time warp of repressive intellectual and
emotional notions, what gets stoked are the superficial “feelings” that
disregard facts and context. This is precisely the mechanism described
in “mob psychology”. We are then, as adults, reduced to a state of tabula rasa. In our naivety, our baser instincts get exposed and exploited. We
reject what is righteous just as we did with Pontius Pilate. Ironically, the fundamentalists will crucify Him again. Mother Teresa had a prayer that
broke the barriers of race and creed, but we are told to be intolerant of those unlike us. Her Christian faith sought equity, but we seek pride in our separateness, and will seek special status from Rome to endorse our tabula rasa.
We mock Him again. Death would be His liberation this time, not
ours. The only question is, how long will it be before He reaches Golgotha, again? He shall not suffer any longer for our refusal to grow up.
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