ARTICLE BY Dr. JERNAIL S. ANAND "TROLLING GODS"
“After the original sin, men have committed a secondary sin also: in their pride, they have turned thankless to the Creator, and in their ingratitude, they are trolling Gods. (Dr. Jernail S Anand)
All is not well with the scions of Adam. Otherwise, millennium after millennium, they would not be starved of a simple thing: happiness. Happiness is a state of mind; it is visible in your eyes, and in your actions. Happiness is the result of a harmonious relationship with others around us, and it is based on right conduct. For right conduct, not only with men, but within the cosmos, we need special education, and training in morality and ethics, while animals and birds know, without any training, how to maintain cosmic harmony.
It may look strange, but it is a fact that man is deficient in these celestial arts, perhaps because of the ‘gift’ of knowledge, which makes him question the very things that sustain him. Knowledge turns men into sceptics who sometimes are found trolling God. Knowledge is the pre-stage of awareness, from which, man could progress into higher states of realization. But we have seen knowledge scatter into a lower phase: Information. We know a lot of things. This surface knowledge of things as they are, imparts us a sense of pride, which blocks our flight into the higher reaches of existential reality. We find men staying on the lower regions, enjoying themselves, yet passing their lives in comparative oblivion, unmindful of the philosophical basis of their sojourn on this earth and the elevating truth of their existence.
FILIAL INGRATITUDE
Are we really doing our errand? More importantly, do we know our errand? We carry the burden of a body, and a mind loaded with a thousand ideas, our own and the multitude that we bring forward, and for what? This slaving all life, for what? Don’t you see, how men are crying, suffering, sighing and dying? For what? What is the logic of being alive? Innocence and Happiness have a direct relationship. I don’t see happiness on human faces because Innocence is missing from their eyes. Eating of the forbidden fruit was the primary sin. But the secondary sin man is guilty of is: man’s thanklessness towards gods. It is filial ingratitude on the part of mankind which makes the trek through this world, an unhappy experience.
If we are in need of water, and someone offers us water, we feel thankful to him. But we feel no gratitude for the Creator who created water on this earth. The real provider of all the things that we eat and enjoy, is God. This thanklessness makes us guilty of a crime we would never have committed, if we had the Original Intelligence that birds and animals possess, which connects them to their Creator. When they sing, they are singing of their thankfulness, for the great Sire, who creates winds for us to make it possible for us to breathe, who raises trees for the birds to build their nests, and then, bring up their kids. Is there just one species, which does not carry genitals? That is His love for life, which becomes a victim of our colossal ignorance.
YELLOW JOYLESSNESS
If you do not perform a duty, [here it is to be thankful for the billions of boons god has created for man], it is called a ‘dosha’, a default, and it causes unpleasantness in the cosmic domain, which reflects in loss of harmony and balance in the lives of men. Wittingly or unwittingly, we carry a guilt consciousness, which colors our life with shades of yellow joylessness. If we find our world in a sordid state of abject misery, lost to love and happiness, it is because of this ‘yellow consciousness’. Money is a base metal, whose love among the people causes this joyless state. Money has value only for this world. But when it is undersupplied, or oversupplied, it closes the doors of our senses on right and wrong. This is a fertile ground for demons to sow their rebellion against gods in the minds of men and put them on a track of no return.
There are two types of men. Those who, oblivious of their connect with the higher forces, lead their lives in complete ignorance. And those who are educated and knowledgeable, who read scriptures, and go to shrines, in order to establish their connection with the gods. Neither carries any sense of gratitude for the gods, for creating things which make our lives possible. In fact, we take all these essential supports as granted, and gods do not make any mistake when they take us as men full of pride and selfhood. Gods love man with all his foolishness, but they do not excuse ‘pride’.
MISPLACED WISDOM
In our pride, have we ever thanked our God for giving us this beautiful world? This life? This body? And this mind which is adequately working? We are not loony. We are not broken in body. We can walk. We can talk. We can think. We can sleep. We can love. We can create joy. These are positive virtues for which we need to thank our God on a daily basis. When we go to shrines, we never ask for peace of mind. We never ask for love. We never ask for joy. We never ask for happiness. Rather, we ask for boons of a dubious nature. We ask for wealth. We ask for name and fame. We ask for power. We are worldly men, and ask for worldly boons.
When we get those boons, we do not know how to deal with them, because they have a perverse side too. Wealth is good to bring occasional happiness and joy. But, do you know, who pays the cost for the wealth you gather? Someone, you don’t know. But Gods know whom you have skinned. With power at your command, have you done any good? We do not need Power for doing good. We need power only to commit evil deeds. In such a state, who can stop you from creating a web of pain and misery for yourself?
Fame that comes from wealth and power is not only illusory, but an antidote to happiness because if it is the result of a personalized love. Boons make you feel happy, without being thankful to what you have got from gods. And this places us in a guilty domain. A heaviness attaches to our mind. We have a lot that can give us happiness, yet our mind is disjointed, and lost in joylessness. This is the state in which most of the humanity lives nowadays. They have provisions for happiness aplenty, yet there is no joy in their hearts. The essential harmony with the cosmos is missing.
When men disobeyed God, and opted for the ‘forbidden fruit’ they were thrown out of Eden. Now, when we show ‘ingratitude’, Gods make no mistake in branding us as ‘specimens of a proud race’, which has trudged out of the realm of godly grace. Gods perhaps mistakenly thought we will learn from our mistakes, and return to the divine fold, but with scientific and technological power at our command, there appears to be a ‘cold war’ between God and his Super Creation, particularly when his own men are found trolling Gods.
Prepared Angela Kosta Academic, journalist, writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, translator