Spiritual shorthand

Prophets, messiahs and souls we call ‘realised’ have had a few common mantras — ideas that have transcended civilisations, geographies, histories. These spiritual LCMs (lowest common denominators), while seemingly simple to read and understand, are exceedingly complex to execute. I’ll take just three: ‘Have faith’, ‘Everything happens for the best (EHFTB)’, and ‘Surrender to God’s will (STGW)’. So many generations of Indians have passed on these homilies as truth, without going through the rigour of assimilating them, questioning them. Perhaps that’s why we are such a contented nation, active to a point, inert beyond. Many wear these badges almost as stars and stripes on their shoulders.

To me, these mantras are simultaneously appealing in their simplicity and suspect in their simplistic interpretation. I do have faith, but let superficial conditions of exams, love, job, money give a couple of questioning knocks. A schoolboy romance or a professional challenge has sometimes caused my faith to shrink as the dark force grows from a brooding tendril of doubt to an Imax-like super-projection dancing the tandav of depression. Each challenge has brought with it its own packaged scepticism. Yes, God is with me, in me, but somehow he disappears at the first crack of inconvenience (my baggage getting mixed up on the conveyer belt) or partial damage (a wrong investment or career decision) or serious loss (heart condition taking my old friend into realms beyond).

At which point, the second mantra, EHFTB, takes charge largely, if I may point out, through thin-crust parroting of others. Perhaps it was time for him to go, else how would you have metamorphosed from a caterpillar into butterfly? It was good your baggage came late, else you would have missed meeting so-and-so. And finally, when you put faith and EHFTB together you reach STGW. It is the only way forward.

Somewhere inside all of us identify with these mantras and know them to be the Truth. Still, the problem lingers. Could it be because we try and cut-paste our shallow demands and expectations from God as valid spiritual rights to be wrested out of him, on our terms, on call? Let us not take these mantras lightly, but understand their deeper, vaster meaning before accepting or rejecting them; for finally they give us strength and direction. We tell ourselves that we must take these things seriously. We get ready to do it. But just then, damn, the power goes.