Converted in Vain

One of the most prosperous ‘business’ in today’s world is that of religious conversion. Democracy in one form or another is bound to blossom all over the world one day and all the organized religions are preparing for seizing power through ballot boxes. In democratic arrangements, numbers determine everything and those religious communities that pray for universal well being and voluntarily follow family planning policies can appear to be idiotic and foolish. But that may not necessarily be the obvious end result. Those who are experts in the religious conversion business know that the process is indeed reversible. If humans are deceived by false promises and coerced during difficult times to convert, the reverse will automatically follow when they realize the truth during better times. As the saying goes, some people can be fooled for some time, but not all people for all times. 

 

India has always been a fertile ground for religious conversion for the missionary forces spearheaded by Europeans and Arabians. Though Christian missionaries pioneered in the field, the sudden enrichment of Arabian peninsula by oil discoveries in the fifties and sixties has resulted in stiff competition from the Islamic forces as well. India’s native religion has always been and will remain unorganized, liberal and highly flexible. A billion such humans is a huge attraction in the religious phishing market and billions of dollars and dinars are poring into India every year to catch as many preys as possible. It has been going on for many centuries, but the marketing efforts of the competing forces have reached a highpoint now. Both the two competitors have started eating into their rival’s portion more than the vast common areas still unexplored. From such competitive heights, their fall will be much more sudden, steep and unpredictable, especially when so many of the successive generations of victims have started feeling that their forefathers converted in vain.        

 

False Promises

 

Human behaviour will always follow the established pattern of hierarchy of needs in any culture or civilization. The same has happened in India. At one time Indian nation was the richest in the world in every sense. Its indigenous wealth and philosophy could easily satisfy all the physical and spiritual needs of all its citizens. No outsider had any scope for interference and Indians never looked outside for anything. Adventurists from all over the world were coming to India to see and experience the wonder that was India. Trouble started when ideological explosions happened elsewhere and spill over isms wanted to recruit more people into their fold to dominate the world. Colonisation of the free world by those who were discontent and dissatisfied with whatever they had at home started off the real problems in today’s world. Looted wealth from the colonies and accidental discoveries of freely available natural resources has provided the momentum for marketing their own version of God and religion as the best.

 

Looting of colonies continued unabated for centuries and what India lost is perhaps unimaginable in real terms now. Christian missionaries and Islamic preachers who followed their plundering frontline had enough crowd to convert and more than enough wealth to lure them. All those who were starving for food had little objection to accept any form of God if milk powder and bread are made available. And those who had no clothes and shelter accepted any form of worship if such basic requirements are freely available. But the basic human needs of food, clothing and shelter fall in the realm of physical requirements and have nothing to do with God and religion. Those who go for fishing with plastic baits can deceive only the first few and may risk their own lives by eating the fish with plastic inside. The logic of religious conversion is crystal clear when we find that the Christian and Islamic missionaries in India are still targeting only the poor in the most backward areas. More than others, they know how weak and hollow are their arguments of superiority. Most of their theory and practices are nothing but poor copies of the original eternal one.     

 

Feasible Solutions

 

Religious conversion is a revolution when it is done voluntarily. But forced or coercive religious conversion is a heinous crime against humanity. Those who indulge in it are destroying the very essence of their individuality and existence. Those who were following Sanatana Dharma for thousands of years over several generations have the basic ingredients of it engraved in their DNAs Forcibly changing them to follow foreign beliefs and dogmas is like throwing the fish out of water. There is no doubt any ideology or ism undergoes a evolutionary process and along its path it will accumulate lot of unwanted beliefs and practices. The so-called caste discrimination in Hindu religion is one such and it has lost its foundation in the current evolved Advaita form of Hindu Sanatana Dharma. Castes (groups or sections of people bound by common heritage) will continue to exist in one form or another, but no discrimination is possible on account of that.

 

 And if the scourge of caste discrimination can be eliminated from Hindu Sanatana Dharma, the door must be kept wide open for the reverse revolution to take place. Those who have revolted against discrimination and made the supreme mistake of abandoning their own legitimate home must be able to come back and rejoin their family. This must be easily possible in a truly secular India where the religion of candidates is not asked for providing food, shelter, clothing, health and education. Those who converted to alien faiths in search of equality must realize their mistake when those same religions are demanding reservations for converts from ‘lower’ castes. Other than the false promise of equality, there was absolutely nothing that would have attracted the converts in comparison with what they had in Hindu Sanatana Dharma.

 

 

It has been established time and again that in terms of spiritual heights, rational depths and practical freedom, there is no other faith that can stand anywhere near Hindu Sanatana Dharma. Its philosophical algorithm is something like an open source code in comparison to the closed ones provided by others. It is left to the individuals to modify and adopt the code in tune with one’s own capabilities. Since God is present in everything that we can think of, there is nothing that can stand between us and God like in other religions. Sankara’s final stamp of approval on Advaita has taken Hindu Sanatana Dharma to a different philosophical plane and all that we need to do is to take it back to its days of glory once again by allowing the free return of all those who converted in vain . 

Living Charts

However long or short, the essence of our lives can be captured by a set of three progress curves plotted over a scale of time. The three parameters needed are Physical, Psychological and Spiritual, and the time scale spans over our lifetimes. For staunch believers in re-births, the time scale can be interrupted periodically, but only to start all over again except perhaps for the spiritual curve. All the aspects of an entity, animate or inanimate, can be categorized under one of the three basic parameters and its progress can be plotted over a lifetime (or repeated lifetimes). While we know for sure that Man undergoes physical, psychological and spiritual progress over a lifetime, we are not sure about the case of other animates and inanimate objects. Whatever be the tall claims of some religionists about the superiority of Man, human knowledge is awfully inconclusive about the inferiority of others. We cannot rule out a spiritual life for animals even though we may not have come across any saintly cats or dogs. But it is still a possibility wide open.

Physical

Our physical growth starts the moment we are conceived. But for a few whose growth gets stunted for various reasons the physical growth continues till full maturity is attained. While a normal human grows physically only till the age of 25 or 30, there are other animates that grow till death. Physical growth of inanimate objects is unpredictable; they may or may not grow and might arbitrarily undergo deterioration and growth during their lifetimes. Man grows bigger during the growing period and plateaus for some time. And those who are fortunate (or unfortunate) to live much longer undergo a steady decline too. It is not difficult for those who have seen very old people to conclude that we might even return to the size of young boys and girls if we can live beyond 120s and 140s. Size and strength of all our organs follow a similar pattern with regard to age. It is easy to plot our physical growth – a period of steady growth, a plateau and then a period of decline and deterioration. The curve can drop to zero at any time abruptly for no particular reason.

Psychological

Psychological growth refers to development of brain and mind. While physical development of brain can be covered under the physical parameter the intangible aspect is more important. It can be categorized along with the other equally important factor namely mind. We know for sure that the size of brain has nothing much to do with one’s intelligence. The simple fact that Einstein and Russell (in contemporary times) had smaller sized brains than most of us proves this point beyond any doubt. And another point to note is the clear disconnect between intelligence and mind. All intelligent creatures need not have imaginative minds. Mind is like paper on which we can write, brain our ability to write and intelligence the tool we write with. Better brains indicate better pens that can write better things. The psychological growth curve of most of us follows a steady upward slope throughout our lifetimes. It should be so unless of course there is a physical or psychological breakdown in between. Barring adverse medical conditions, older brains and older minds have always been found to be psychologically more vibrant and productive.

Spiritual

The spiritual aspect of anything is that which triggers its search for a meaning. There is an element of divinity at birth in each one of us and hence our spiritual curves always start at a non-zero positive value. But our real spiritual quest can start only after the physical and psychological curves have covered some ground. In simpler words, we start our search for a meaning in life only after adolescence. There are rare exceptions to this general rule like Sai Baba and Mata Amritanandamayi, but any spiritual curve for ordinary folks will have meaning only after the faculties for spiritual exploration are fully developed. Most of the Sunday classes and similar attempts to force children to learn about God are utterly useless. The spiritual curve takes off late but it can be believed to continue even after death. For life after life the same spiritual curve can continue until its soul owner realizes the ultimate truth in its entirety. Followers of different faiths can have different spiritual curves depending upon their beliefs about after life.

The attempt here to simplify a complex phenomenon as our lives to the limited contours of three curves may look ridiculous. But if you accept it for a moment and start putting together a picture for your own life till date the idea will definitely look more meaningful. Segregation of all aspects of our life under the three basic parameters and trying to plot a curve each for the progress of physical, psychological and spiritual self will certainly force us to take stock of our own lives. Such an interim review can open up our eyes and lead us to higher rates of evolution in the two vital aspects viz. psychological and spiritual. It is definitely worth a try.