(This was written toward the end of 2012.)
On Facebook, my Religious Views section reads: . . .
. . . (Fill
in the blank with any Religion as you wish!) Some people ask me about this. I greet them with a perfectly proper “Assalamualaikum.” Since joining my job as the first from our batch, I’ve had to represent many groups in various places, speak on behalf of everyone (I still do in many places). I gauge my audience and speak accordingly, so I’ve offered the greeting. Many respected seniors have said, “Sushanta greets with ‘Salam’ so beautifully—something many Muslim boys can’t even do.” This too raises questions: why don’t I always say “Adab” or “Namaskar”? Why only sometimes? What does “Assalamualaikum” mean? May the Creator’s peace be upon you. What does “Namaskar” mean? I bow to the divine within you. I see no conflict between the two! One can greet a person with either. What harm is there in understanding which one they prefer to hear and saying that? I don’t have many restrictions about food. I eat—considering whether the food is healthy, whether it will digest well. Why not more restrictions? This too becomes a question. I don’t want to bind how I address someone after meeting them with any religious culture. I address people according to their personal preferences; it never occurs to me to impose religious restrictions here. I have some modest study of religion—and I say this humbly: compared to many who practice religion more but know less, at least I know more than many of them. Religion has never seemed so fragile to me that a few forms of address or food habits would make it recognizable or unrecognizable. We have given religion far more space in our rhetoric and at the dining table than in our hearts. How much do we really understand religion’s essence? Think about it—we’ve received religion much like ancestral property; by birth. Whichever religion you belong to, there’s neither credit nor discredit to you in this. If we were allowed to choose our religion with our permission, many of us would have chosen some other religion. Most would probably have sided with John Lennon’s “no religion.” Have you noticed how many foreigners who have understood ISKCON’s ideals and received initiation in religion’s primary note—that is, love for humanity—look at their devotion; you’ll see they’re doing far more of religion’s essential work than we are. It wasn’t imposed on them—they’re carrying it forward voluntarily, knowingly, joyfully. Unlike us, they are Hindus by choice, not by birth. I haven’t prayed for at least fourteen years now. I’ve never had to suffer any hardship for this. The great God has never seemed so vindictive to me that He would harm me if I don’t chatter incessantly near His ear. Excessive flattery and showing off are needed by petty humans, not by God. To me, God is as much a friend as a master. Our relationship is quite good. I don’t get into trouble with Him; He hasn’t gotten into any trouble with me so far either. Rather, I’m grateful to Him that He saved me by not granting many of my early life’s prayers. He’s omniscient precisely because He doesn’t listen to everything. Only He knows exactly what’s good for me, what’s bad. How little can we understand the future! There’s no point giving Him so much trouble for this. To me, religion’s fundamental message is: live and let live. We do this less. We’re more busy with religion’s externalities. All religions clearly state: action is religion. Worshipping Saraswati doesn’t make you pass exams—you have to study to pass. So you’ll see that the neighborhood boys who hassle most for donations before pujas are mostly nowhere near their studies. Because studying is hard, puja is easy. They perform pujas and fail their exams.
But whom is Saraswati pleased with?
Good question! Let me answer it in verse—understand it well:
Excess in the name of worship,
Estrangement from books,
Competing in deception—
You devotees who do all this and get excited quickly,
Know this well: the goddess of learning is always angered by such goat-kid antics!
If one could pass exams by performing pujas, at least I wouldn’t have studied; studying is much harder work. I can’t abandon work and call on God, then also blame Him for poverty—that won’t do. God brings plates of gold coins and sweets only in plays and movies. That doesn’t fill stomachs—it fills producers’ and directors’ pockets. Why do most people only want to be religious? Why don’t they want to be good human beings? For two reasons. One: being religious is much easier than being a good person. Two: people become religious purely for their own needs. Think about it a little—we become religious for our own peace. We generally do what keeps us happy, what makes us feel good. How does this benefit others? Even if it does, in most cases it’s due to their own actions, not ours. Many people commit a greater sin while observing their own religion—that is, practicing religion by harming or inconveniencing others. I am religious—this is entirely by my own choice, for myself. I cannot claim any extra benefit or respect for this. Making such claims is nothing but the childishness of schoolgoing boys and girls, for whom religion exists only on the pages of religious education books, in exam papers, and on marksheets. From my own experience, I’ve seen that making grand speeches about religion and country is the safest and most profitable thing to do. Everyone likes to exploit religion and country for their own interests. And they do. It’s very risk-free. If you can do this skillfully by mixing in emotion, not only is there no punishment, but you might even get extra rewards. Those who practice religion properly never make a fuss about it, don’t do it by inconveniencing others, and know how to respect people of other faiths. Don’t impose the liability of investment for your beautiful afterlife on others’ shoulders! Religion is a matter of feeling; who am I to decide what someone will feel or not feel? Not everyone thinks exactly the same way, lives the same way. As many opinions, so many paths. Religion holds us as much as we hold religion—if we could hold even a quarter of that, there wouldn’t be so much conflict in the world today. I’ve never had the inclination or time to make a fuss about theism-atheism, and I don’t now. There are many other things in this world to think about. That I belong to such-and-such religion is no virtue of mine; similarly, that someone else doesn’t belong to such-and-such religion is no fault of theirs. Judging someone’s acceptability by their religion and judging someone’s appearance by their national ID card photo are the same kind of foolishness. Because in both cases, the individual has no hand in it. A person cannot claim favor or suffer discrimination for credit or discredit that isn’t theirs. You have to be as selfish when accepting the good aspects of anything as you have to be intelligent when cleverly avoiding the bad aspects. So I feel very hurt when someone speaks disparagingly of any religion. You can never elevate your own faith by disrespecting someone else’s beliefs. This isn’t religiosity—this is fanaticism. One more thing: what I think and do (for which my friends personally attack me), I’m not unique in these matters. The real issue is that I simply cannot be a hypocrite, nor can I tolerate hypocrisy. I say what I have to say very directly. It’s much better to be a scoundrel than a hypocrite. Many people do so many things, stay quiet, pose as good-good in everyone’s eyes; who knows how long ago their backbone rotted away. My failing is that I can’t do this. Every religion seems like a philosophy to me; I very selfishly embrace the essence of all religions in my heart. Where’s the time for all this quarreling? To me, practicing religion is very simple. Not harming anyone, not deceiving anyone, loving people, serving people, helping someone if possible, living beautifully and letting others live beautifully, learning-understanding-studying many things about religion’s art-traditions-culture-architecture-philosophy-festivals, properly respecting other religions and religious people—all these things. Religion isn’t in the pages of scriptures; religion is among people. If there’s such a thing as virtue, it’s in changing one’s own life, helping change others’ lives, not by giving someone fish but by teaching them how to catch fish, by touching at least some people’s lives if not many, by showing at least some people the path to what I’ve received. Think a little—if someone didn’t pour all their milk on the lifeless stone Shiva lingam but gave some milk to an orphan child’s mouth, wouldn’t the world be more beautiful? Or if someone bought an Eid punjabi for 5,000 taka instead of 15,000 taka and used the remaining 10,000 taka to buy clothes for some helpless street children, wouldn’t the joy of Eid increase a little more? I don’t want to practice any religion that makes the world ugly and joyless. Let me share another thought. I think: parents first, then God. Is there anything visible or experienceable that is divine, yet we haven’t received it from our parents or found the path to receive it? I haven’t found any good answer to this yet. Let me know if you find one. What will be the result of keeping aged parents suffering in old homes while reading namaz five times in the mosque or praying all day in churches-temples-pagodas? Many of us, becoming disenchanted with religion, give our parents many logical arguments to discourage them from practicing religion. They won’t be able to match us in arguments. This is natural. They’ll eventually fall silent, suffer in their minds. It’s because they raised us that we could become more modern-minded than them. Is it right to hurt them by becoming like that? We often say many things with contempt and mockery because our mothers watch Indian Hindi-Bengali serials or reality shows. But have we ever thought that they don’t have anyone nearby to talk to, in old age they need someone to talk to, and we ourselves can’t give them time due to our busyness; if we pay a little attention, we’ll see how happy they stay during TV watching time! Keeping parents happy is the most important thing. So what’s the point of making them sad during the time they’re happy? How many more days will they live anyway? Not everyone has the good fortune to serve their parents. Most parents exhaust themselves to raise their children and eventually are completely exhausted. How many of us get the good fortune to make happy those whose sacrifice of all life’s pleasures and comforts gave us all our achievements? So, as long as they remain as shade trees above our heads, letting them stay in peace and happiness in their own way is religion.
(The other day was Lakshmi Puja. My mother performs the puja at our house. All the ceremonial items are arranged and the puja happens in the evening. So mother has to fast all day. There’s a rule to recite Lakshmi’s panchali after the puja ends. I saw mother feeling very tired and weak. Though I don’t follow religious externalities much, to reduce mother’s suffering even a little, I bathed in the evening and recited Lakshmi’s panchali for her. “The full moon night of Dol, the clear sky, gentle malaya breeze is flowing…” The amazing thing is, while reciting the panchali, I discovered that even after almost eighteen years, almost the entire panchali is still memorized, even though Lakshmi’s panchali hasn’t been recited once in these eighteen years! I understood why childhood rhymes remain in memory even in adulthood! What I was saying: by practicing what I don’t usually practice—meaning religious externalities—I could reduce mother’s suffering even a little, and that itself is peace of heart, comfort, joy, therefore—religion to me. What gives me peace is my religion; what gives others peace is their religion. So no religion is big or small. All religions have equal necessity, because all religions bring tranquility to some community or other.)