I want to begin with discussing the question: does our past really play a role in the shaping of our future? If so, how does it? I was reading the Srimad Bhagavatam, a translation and transliteration of the holy Vedas by Vyasa, a Sanskrit scholar, and was browsing through the Twelfth canto when I found a section on the Karma Yoga. I could not understand the slokas, and the translation and meaning sections also didn’t help much. It was too deep, too blue. I gave up, but not before reading the summary of the chapter: the Karma Yoga dealt with one’s actions and their reformation in order to live a full, wholesome life.
Now, just consider the contemporary scenario. The world around is powered by science, and education plummets us forward and ahead of the illiterate. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be learnt or taught, if there is no education. In turn, the education that powers us does so by filtering out an immense amount of information, thereby creating knowledge. Our knowledge is most probably restricted to those matters that aid in the improvisation of our lives. Education imparts perception, perception imbues understanding, understanding delivers belief. I for one cannot simply accept when someone says there is a God. I need proof because I deign myself a man of science. I base my faiths in logic and reason. They have suited me well in many matters and thus, I effect that they aid me in my religious principles as well. For, religion is hollow sans belief, is it not? Anyway, I simply can’t come to terms with God – science presents me with the option of basing my faith in some other cause, a cause that is logical and reasonable. Let God exist for those who cannot switch to science and its “explanations” abruptly (I’m, of course, talking of the elderly, who saw drastic changes in their lives as they moved through the Industrial Revolution), or to those who consider science’s prowess a sign that points to it being another of God’s innumerable creations. For that matter, science itself might not be absolute but that’s a different issue. What I’m saying is that intelligence has transformed me into an atheist, but not a complete one at that. I would like to believe in a God at the borders of science, where logic itself fails at explaining phenomena like the structure of space before the big bang.
बुद्धीन्ध्रियार्था रूपेण |
जनानाम भाति ताधाश्रयम ||
ध्र्श्यथ्वाव्यतिरैखाभ्याम |
आध्यांतावाद अवस्तु यात ||
Therefore, in the absence of a spiritual power or, say, the Absolute Truth, my future continues to be the enigma it is in the absence of Karma Yoga. There is no Heaven or Hell to judge me, I am not part of a cycle of birth and death, I don’t have to pay for my sins by the eye-for-an-eye principle. It is my mind which is at work behind all these things, and it is me who is responsible.
Karma Yoga dwells on those sections of life that are sometimes derived from just experience (the past). If a car hits me while I’m crossing the road and I break my leg, some would say I might have broken someone’s leg in the past like that. Even then, if I have, I would not beat myself up for committing that sin. I would blame it on me, my decisions and values, my behaviour, my self. I would place my values and morals above my spirituality. Even in such cases, Karma Yoga seems to resurface when you subconsciously establish a connection between your past and your present – a form of the placebo effect.
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Some elements that guide you in life are, like I said, your education, your understanding of the world derived from your perceptions. Who you are is completely by determined by these elements and there is no refuting that. If your parents have screwed you over, it is you who has decided to blame them for it and continue being screwed, instead of learning from your mistakes and building your strengths and weaknesses. When you believe that your past is connected to your present, it is your education which is being dwelt upon: when you try and recollect as to why you performed such an act in the past, the lessons you may not have learnt at that time are costing you your health or wealth now. The spiritual in us seeps into our personality when we refuse to accept our insecurities for what they are and, instead, choose to mask them with reasons that suitably plug the hole. Theism only makes us feel secure in a small period of time, and it holds us and hugs us all through our lives if only we trust our minds with it.
One of the greatest political leaders and scholars I know is Periyar (original name: E. V. Ramasamy), a Dravidian social activist in Tamil Nadu, India. An important contribution of his to the Indian society was the awakening of the non-Brahmins, and the instilling of self-respect in them. His many speeches and articles and essays spoke about the Brahmins who claimed to be superior just because they controlled the temples and performed archanas. He implored the people to realise and understand that spirituality and godliness was not everything: he believed that everything was what it was only if we, the people, made it to be. Above everything stood us, our morals and values, us as who we were and us as what our duties were. God was no obligation.
That religion is only as strong as the weakest believer is very true. More than those who devoutly believe in a God and His/Her prowess, there are those who use religion as a mask, as a shield. The following is a quote that summarises what most atheists believe in, in that we are only non-believers, not fundamentalists.
“…the talk of the atheist should be considered thoughtless and erroneous. The thing I call god… that makes all people equal and free, the god that does not stop free thinking and research, the god that does not ask for money, flattery and temples can certainly be an object of worship. For saying this much I have been called an atheist, a term that has no meaning“
– Periyar
However, I am an atheist – in that I believe in Periyar’s definition of God, and therefore am inevitably an atheist because I don’t believe in God as He is otherwise. I don’t know if I am an agnostic. But I am not an atheist or an agnostic like some of the many people I know: people who think intelligence recapitulates atheism. I have reasons for my choices, and I have given them.
Clathration Therapy 