The Spiritualiy of Atheism

Atheism – the highest form of Spirituality

Shoonya or Empty or bereft of anything of substance, the ultimate of non-being is an ancient Indian proposition that finally gave rise to the concept of zero. Curiously, the idea of zero resulted in an elevated idea of number and together with the structuring of a number by the positioning of numerals led to the ability to grasp and manipulate large numbers taking mankind beyond the primitive methods of counting that were restricted to one, two, three and infinity. Zero thus became the absolute supreme of all numbers. 

Atheism which posits the absence of any gods and even the negation of an earth-like heaven modelled on an impossible-of-achievement utopia seems to be the most practical solution to the intellectual confusion and strains of dishonesty created by the multiplicity of god-like constructs of the human mind. It is no coincidence that atheists from all regions do not, in contrast to the followers of different theists, have intra-atheistic conflicts arising from the sources of their beliefs. Atheism, which is accepted in the overall Hindu construct (incidentally the only Religion in the world that allows this) – was likened to ignorance and euphemistically called Avidya or lacking in knowledge. That tag did not lead to the brutalities of the Inquisition or to burning at the stake. Ignorance was contemptible but did not invoke a violent hatred leading to torture or death in the full view of a public arena. They also did not face commands to recant with ‘or else’ threats. They did not have to fear the ignominies of punishment in public for all to see and beware. They were not made examples of in order to terrorise those tending to be blasphemous.

So it appears that to be an atheist is in many ways superior to being a believer. It makes one free; provides freedom from the burden of a threatening Supreme Being, freedom from the need to continual prayer and ritual and freedom from the need to go on pilgrimage. It releases many spaces of the brain otherwise occupied by beliefs difficult to maintain and practice, it allows reason to displace blind faith and it fills the mind with hope. Belief in the supremacy of man replaces the belief in a supernatural God. With atheism mankind can start looking forward and relinquish the teachings of backward looking prophets.

There are many studying theism and even Chairs in Universities are devoted to the study of theology. Recently a Chair was created in an American University for the study of Atheism. That is a long awaited and much desired event and it is to be hoped it will eventually be followed by having Churches devoted to atheism and priests of non-God preaching to laity on the virtues of being non-believers. Will we also have atheist evangelists exhorting people to shed the beliefs of their fathers and who propagate discovering the emptiness of the heavens as the final epiphany that liberates them?    

Razing a Monument – the Taj Mahal

Remember the Buddhas at Bamiyan or the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya.  In one case the brave and fearless Taliban in a courageous and bold act of iconoclasm aimed cannon fire at the unarmed stone statues and blasted them out of their ornamented recesses leaving only some empty cannonball scorched niches. In the other case the kar sevaks egged on by Marga Darshaks demolished a magnificent old relic. We hear that the artistic, sensitive and diligent Japanese have assured the world they would restore the images at Bamiyan with holographic reproductions. That is good news because no amount of cannon fire could destroy a hologram. However, the Babri Masjid has no such saviours.

Will they be assembling cannons around the Taj Mahal? One wonders how many cannons and how many cannonballs would be needed to raze that monumental wonder of the world, the Taj Mahal, to dust. It may have been built by traitors who were in the lineage of successful conquerors, who adopted the land they conquered and like the ancient Aryans decided to stay on, but it is too beautiful a gift to our land; a land whose ancient aesthetic accomplishments in turning common stone to exquisite sculpture are there as unmatched legacy for all to behold. Will the inheritors of that great artistic tradition descend into a mindless aping of the destructive philistinism of the Taliban?

We do not have to take the ranting of bigots seriously. They are more used to rabble rousing than to leading men to think. What we have to consider is the atmosphere of bigotry and fear that has been unleashed in this our land of unbounded tolerance and large-hearted inclusiveness.  How has this come about and how can we push it back? For push it back we must else we would be untrue to the legacies of the Indian past. That would be an even bigger disaster than the razing of the Taj Mahal.

Ozymandias and the Yogi of Uttar Pradesh

Those of you who have read of a 100 metre tall statue of Lord Ram proposed in Ayodhya may like to remember the Shelly poem on Ozymandias, reproduced below. 

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away"

. 

The revered Yogi who heads the state of Uttar Pradesh has no doubt many things to occupy his mind besides the commissioning of statues. The hospital at Gorakhpur and its sad record of child deaths is only one of the problems that plague the land. One politician commented on the Yogi's visit to Kerala for the Jan Raksha Yatra, asking him to study the educational systems and the public  health systems of Kerala rather than the penchant for political violence more often than not seeded by a virulent Hindutva trying to spread its malevolence among a polity noted for its secularism. 

Development the Chief has said to be the essence of his creed. And development it shall be, what if the development is of a skewed and fundamental nature. So we will develop the gigantic statue in reverence of a worshiped ancestor on the banks of a sacred river and the mighty shall look upon these works and despair. 

We ordinary mortals look upon the proposal and despair.

Modi:- Will not eat will not let eat

Modi:- Will not eat, will not let eat. 

When a chief politician whose election promises that he will not eat nor will he let eat, (greed being a euphemism for corruption), finally achieves his goal of becoming head of Government it does not behoove him to forget that not so long ago avowed promise.  When a close colleague has a son who has suddenly found himself in great wealth the father's proximity to the boss becomes an embarrassment not only to the politician but also to the party he belongs to and undoubtedly to the boss-man who had boasted of his penchant for ascetic fasting. Why then is the P M who is prone to  to spout homilies on each and every occasion not saying anything relating even obliquely to this sudden disclosure?

We tend to believe that the threat to take the web magazine, which brought this exceptionable amassing of wealth to light, to court for defamation is an infantile response and will keep this cloud on the government's keepers in the public gaze for much longer than it deserves. The coincidence and concurrence of fortune smiling with the paternal rise to power is too blatant to be accidental. 

There are enough precedents to follow and if Amit Shah has the moral fibre which the BJP always publicly professes to possess, it is only correct for him to bow to his sense of propriety and resign after initiating a process to investigate the reasons for the sudden prosperity of his son.  Then will the sins of the son be visited upon the father?

A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

It was very pleasing to read that the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. I was reminded of that march I had undertaken with a few thousand others from Aldermaston, the storehouse of nuclear weapons in England, to Hyde Park in London. The final achievement was to be able to shake hands with Bertrand Russell after standing in a long queue .  He  expounded the intellectual position in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and made the long march and its travails bearable. I still remember the march in the early sixties when as a student fired up with the ideals of pacifism and protesting the storage and use of nuclear weapons we went on the streets. In the towns we passed through people lined up on the streets and encouraged us as we marched. There were policemen on horseback riding by our side and some were pointing at their boots to say that we deserved a booting.

We sang of men and women marching together; we sang of the dread of Strontium 18 poisoning future generations; we sang of atolls in the pacific used to test some of these dreadful bombs; we sang that we shall overcome. Now reading about the Nobel Peace Prize being given  to a campaign for nuclear disarmament a great satisfaction drowns me for it seems that we are indeed slowly overcoming. 

Nuclear Weapons have catastrophic consequences and would cause unacceptable human suffering. There are about 15000 nuclear weapons and they run the risk of literally ending the world by a freak accident or by irresponsible politicians. At the rate at which these weapons of mass destruction are growing the probability of their misuse mounts and a helpless world hopes that a better sense would prevail among those who have access to the controls of these bombs.

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is a most befitting tribute to the pacifists all over the world who have striven hard and are still working tirelessly to put an end to the devilish invention that the atomic bombs have become.