COUNTERPOINT
In his column Counterpoint, in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami, Vir Sanghvi said this on January 2, 2005: “But even as I hold back the tears and try and move beyond the grief of those who have lost everything, I keep asking myself that most cosmic of questions: why?
Why did so many people have to die? Why did made so many children to begin their lives as orphans? What about individual destiny, about the astrological charts that predict the future? Was it written in the horoscope of every single person who perished in the Indian Ocean that he or she would die suddenly, unexpectedly and pointlessly?
I am aware that I am straying into Talking Bush/Speaking Tree territory here and I know there is no shortage of answers to these questions. Some Hindus will say it was Karm, a past life setting of scores. Others will argue that God has a plan that he does not reveal to all of us. Some will even say that these things are sent to try us. (Though frankly, I’m still a little dubious about how astrologers can explain all this. Did each and every person who died on Boxing Day have death clearly marked on her or his chart?)…
And so, people who’ve lost everything because of an act of God will sit down again and pray to that same God for some relief, some help, or some succour.
I don’t claim to understand it. But yes, like everybody else I continue to believe in a benevolent God.”
These were the points raised by Vir Sanghvi. Counterpoint is truly this?
All faiths believe that God sent messengers and rophets on earth, to the exception of some Hindus who even go a step further to say that He Himself took Avatar in the form of Krishna and Rama. Why? As Creator, He had done His job! Created the process that we call Nature so that everything continues to multiply, and He kept no distinction between man and animals? Then what was the reason for Krishna and Rama or Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammad to come? This is something that we all know the answer of but we all chose to ignore in the face of newspaper headings like “Annus Libidis; 2004: The year when sex and sexcapades spilt wide open.”
Gita has explicitly stated that the moral and religious decay among the people leads to the decay of the world.
Whoever resorting to Me, strive for liberation from decay and death, they know That, that Absolute, all that constitutes Self-knowledge, and everything pertaining to action.
(Gita. VII. 29)
Many of us won’t believe the statement of Gita that the evil deeds would lead to the decay of the world. The world is progressing leaps and bounds, they would say. But is it actually? That the world is decaying can be seen in the initial pages of Bible or in the historical narrations of Purana. It is stated that people lived several hundred years. And they were far more virile and powerful than us. The number of children the women of the period are said to have born cannot be conceived by women of today even so if they try. Puranas even state that towards the end of the world, man’s life span would come close to twenty years. Revered sages of yore even knew of this.
If you still don’t believe, see the following excerpt from TOI (Nov. 21, 2004): “As per the 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 15,589 species face extinction. One in three amphibians and almost half of all freshwater turtles are threatened. So are one in eight birds and one in four mammals.”
Moreover, as regards to what we term as death, the message of both Gita and Quran is different. God tells Arjuna to kill Drona, Bhishma and Duryodhana by saying that they were already dead in the eyes of God, and Arjuna would only gain fame for him if he complies with the command of God.
As per Puranas, the Kalki Avatar (Mahdi of the Muslims) is about to arrive who will remove all injustice, all evil from the face of the world and lead man to the true nature of God’s worship. Fighting alongside him, otherwise prohibited, to uphold truth and justice, would then be permissible at the orders of God’s true representative, as it was obligatory to do so alongside Rama, Krishna or Mohammad. Death, as per all religions, is inevitable and merely transfers the spirit from one body to the other. Life and death is for the soul or spirit, which was created at the time of creation and which would continue to survive for all time.
As II.27 of Gita states:
In respect of anyone born, death is certain, and certain is birth likewise for anyone dead; therefore regarding something inevitable, you have no reason to feel any regret.
And in II-19-24, it is said:
He who thinks his as the killer and he who thinks this as killed – both these know not. This does not kill; is not killed.
This is neither born nor does this die, nor having once come into being, cease to become any more: unborn, perpetual, eternal is this ancient one. It is not killed on the killing of the body.
About him who knows this as the indestructible, the ever-lasting, the unborn, never-decreasing one (of) such a person how could (the questions) ‘whose death He causes’, ‘whom He kills’ (arise) O Partha (Arjuna)?
As a man casting off his worn-out garments assumes others that are new, likewise casting off bodies that are worn-out, the embodied one takes to others that are new.
Weapons do not cut This, fire does not burn This and water does not wet This; wind does not dry This:
Indeed It is uncleavable; It is non-inflammable; It is unwettable and non-dryable also; everlasting, all-pervading, stable, immobile; It is eternal.
Longevity is the longevity of the spirit, or when one’s self unites with the Divine Self of the Absolute God. Then does salvation occurs which is freedom from the cycle of rebirth. That person, that self continues to live in Indra’s heaven, for all time to come.
And II.15 says:
That man indeed of firm mind who is unaffected by these, O best of Men (Arjuna), equal-minded in joy as well as pain, he is destined for immortality.
If even such manifest attempts by Divine Powers to show the presence of God are seen by us and forgotten, how can we complain if this happens again? Vir Sanghvi’s article itself illustrates that New Year celebrations would have been different for him, had this calamity not struck. Same with others! But are we still remembering those thousands of death on the subsequent new years? As regards to the general people, reports showed that the tourists took just a year to return to the beaches of Thailand. The same reports also said that the prostitutes too returned to service the pleasure-seekers.
It is unfortunate that we all continue to run towards a maya full of material presence around us, when even the seemingly least harming things like water and air has the capacity to wipe away all traces of materialism that we had hoarded at the cost of others who had to sleep without food under an open sky.
Quran (3:117) states:
The likeness of what they spend in the life of this world is as the likeness of wind in which is intense cold (that) smites the seed produce of a people who have done injustice to their souls and destroys it; and Allah is not unjust to them, but they are unjust to themselves.
It is unfortunate that while all Divine scriptures give just one message, not one community among us is truly and collectively holding on to the teachings of the scripture that they call their own, while summarily rejecting the others. Even if they had truly understood their own scripture, they would have seen all maintain that the world has been created to worship the Absolute God, who is beyond our parameters of religion and region. Righteousness, justice, simple living, truthfulness and peacefulness are the best of virtues. As regards to worship, the last chapter of Yajur Veda categorically states that sun, moon, earth, and all beings, other than man, are engaged in the worship of God. And it is a universally accepted miracle of Prophet Mohammad that even the stone-particles used to start praising the God, when he put them in his hands. If there is anybody who repeatedly digresses from the worship of God, it is this man. God is truly a benevolent one as Vir Sanghvi has pointed out. But in the domain of God, there are certain divinities whose job it is to keep reminding us of God’s presence and continue with their efforts to lead mankind to the worship of God. Do we have the capacity to get out of His Empire? If not, are we proving ourselves to be the worthy citizens of His Mighty Empire?
It is reported that Imam Jafar Sadiq once said:
Jesus the son of Mary, may the blessings of Allah be upon him, said: ‘You work for the sake of this world while it is not by work that you are provided for in it. And you do not work for the sake of the next world, while it is only by work that you will be provided for in it. Woe be unto you, evil learned ones! You take your wage and neglect works. Soon the worker’s work will he accepted, and soon you will be driving forth from the narrowness of this world toward the darkness of the grave. How can one be knowledgeable who is on the way to the next world and yet his face is turned towards this world, and he likes the things that harm him more than the things that benefit him?
(Al-Kafi. II. 319)
And Quran (2:27) says:
Who break the covenant of Allah after its confirmation and cut asunder what Allah has ordered to be joined, and make mischief in the land; these it is that are the losers.
How many of us know what covenant is being talked about here? How many of us are aware what Self-knowledge comprise about which Gita says it is the loftiest of all knowledges?
Those who died, their spirits might have already found another abode, perhaps better. Instead of taking lessons from that, we are even willing to point an accusing finger at God. History has shown it on countless occasions that man has tried to make God as he wanted him to be, instead of trying to become as He intends.
There is one more point that Sanghvi has raised. “Was it written in the horoscope of every single person who perished?” That they died shows that it was written. But to read it one has to be spiritually enlightened and not merely possess knowledge of the stars.
A very clear example is given in books. People of a certain period had perfected themselves in the knowledge of the stars to such an extent that each one of them, individually, knew everything about his future, and had calculated the time of their death, to exact precision. They used to do it by looking at the reflection of stars in the water of a pond. A messenger of God approached them and invited them to His worship. They derided and mocked him claiming that they knew everything about their future and the messenger had nothing new to tell. The messenger prayed to God who told him he should tell them to look at their pond again. They did so only to find that the death which as per their calculations was far away was looming at their faces. God showed He has the power, even to change the course of nature. More importantly, even then He did not deny the importance of knowledge.
God holds knowledge and application of reason in highest esteem! Gita has devoted several chapters to putting one’s reason to good use. That we do not do it is our biggest mistake. Even in matters related to God and the purpose of our creation.
It is reported from Imam Sadiq, from his father that he said:
Jesus, Peace be upon him, used to say: ‘Regarding the terror which you do not know when you will encounter [i.e. death], what prevents you from preparing for it before it comes upon you suddenly?’
(Bihar al-Anwar. XIV. 330)
And the following verses from Quran, further elaborates from the point:
O you who believe! spend out of what We have given you before the day comes in which there is no bargaining, neither any friendship nor intercession, and the unbelievers— they are the unjust.
(Quran. 2.254)
And 2:36 further says:
But the Shaytan (Satan) made them both fall from it, and caused them to depart from that (state) in which they were; and We said: Get forth, some of you being the enemies of others, and there is for you in the earth an abode and a provision for a time.
And see 2:48:
And be on your guard against a day when one soul shall not avail another in the least, neither shall intercession on its behalf be accepted, nor shall any compensation be taken from it, nor shall they be helped.
Forgetting the true purpose of our creation, deviating from the path that was laid down for us, unaware of the identity of the self so as to progress towards the path of self-realization, and even unmindful of His presence very close to us when we sin, we want Him to love us and protect us from His own wrath. The mirage of the false world and its charm continue to desist us from the path of His Messengers. With righteousness at its nadir and evil manifest, perhaps, the last of the Avatars has started preparing for his arrival. And tsunamis and quakes are just a reminder that he is right here!
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