We’ve all heard the counter-theories, that ‘conscience’ is nothing but a socio-political construct, a spiritual imposition meant to keep us in check, that religious precepts are the injection needles. What we need to question, though, is the operation of this conscience. There’s a master template for sure, that is universal: Do not harm others by word or deed.It is when we get to the ‘field operations’ of the spin-doctors that we run into trouble. The spin-doctors, of course, are the sacerdotal class, the professionals of religion. In simple language, the priests or clergymen of every patriarchal faith (are there others, of influence?). While important social constructs like law and accountability have grown from religious belief, the petty do’s and don’ts of ‘religious practice’ seem to have harmed more than helped. We would not have the caste system, the suppression of women or racism otherwise, would we?In these days of dogma and bloc-thinking, it seems crucial that we remember the subversive elements who refused to toe the establishment line. Let’s call it ‘erupting humanity’, the breed that refuses to meekly lie down and get arranged in priestly pigeonholes, but seeks to understand the ‘laws of life’ individually, using the human intellect as a tool and not as a vessel. A terrific example is the Mother of the Universe herself, Kamakshi Amman, who apparently appeared as an ‘ugra avatar’ or fierce apparition, to rid the world of a demon. Brahma the uber-patriarch ‘advised’ her to simmer down and marry Shiva in his aspect of Ekambareswar — but she refused! When pressured, she politely but firmly told the entire gang of gods that if ‘He’ needed a wife that badly, they should hold a yagnya and summon forth a ‘golden doll’ (Bangaru Kamakshi) and park her besides Shiva. Are you surprised that almost no god-fearing Hindu is told this feisty ancient legend?I really can’t understand the priests. They themselves accommodated this splendidly ‘disobedient’ story in the living pravaha or flow of tradition, it was they who ensured that this story was kept alive from generation to generation. Why, then, did they keep it lowkey and let their own mothers and daughters be squashed? Wheel north, fly across the land to Punjab. Here’s a 16th century Sufi verse: O God, do not mind my faults/There is nothing worthy in this unworthy one. Pity me/To the worldly, their worldly pride, to fakirs, the wrap of renunciation;/I am neither a recluse, nor worldly;/Let little people laugh at me! Says Husain, God’s fakir, My friend is the Terrible One. Does it really bother you that it’s by Madho Lal and his lover Husain whose verses were apparently not included in the Guru Granth Sahib because the authors were gay?
