Just because you don’t like the
message, don’t shoot the messenger!
A couple of days ago I received an email
forward of a media release purported to have been issued on behalf of Sri Sri
Ravi Shankar and the Art of Living organization. I don’t know if the release
was indeed issued on Sri Sri’s behalf. I hope not. The release attacks, albeit
in a veiled manner without naming them, director Rajkumar Hirani, actor Aamir
Khan and their movie PK, for “projecting
sadhus (Hindu saints) in bad light”,
for “promoting dargahs (Muslim
shrines) and putting down ashrams
(Hindu monasteries)” and for “influencing young minds”. The release also says
that the makers of PK have been
funded by a terrorist to put down spirituality.
I find the content of the media release
preposterous. And the charges against Khan, Hirani and PK baseless. Whoever authored that release and whoever authorized
its circulation neither understands spirituality not do they understand PK’s message.
Spirituality is the flowering
of inner awareness. It is the realization that comes from within that you are
the divinity that you seek. Spirituality is deeply personal, it is intense and
it is liberating. It sets you free. Religion, on the other hand, tries to
achieve the same result but ends up making bad spaghetti out of a good recipe.
Not because there’s anything wrong with the recipe. But because the cooks, the
high priests of the various religions (as the PK character says in PK, “the
managers of the various companies”), have hidden and divisive agendas; they promote
ritualism and hold gullible people – like you and me – hostage! In the movie,
in one brilliant scene, PK picks up a
new born baby to inspect if the baby is born with a “stamp”, a means of
identification, that he or she was actually created (“sent down”) to be a Hindu
or a Christian or a Muslim. The message is stark and uncomfortable: that our religion
has been thrust upon us. We are born free to simply be human. But the label of
Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jew and such is stuck on us as an afterthought.
Our family and society force us to follow the religion that they have chosen
for us. To add to the confusion, people who are self-proclaimed leaders of the
various religions, induce fear among their followers saying that if you
question what is being told and practiced, you will be punished by your God! PK makes another important,
uncontestable point – the God, he says, that created you and me, is different
from the God that we humans have created to suit our convenience. God, the
creator, is compassionate, loving and is ever present – within us. The God we
have created, he says, is forever elusive, being “managed and protected by agents
and managers” and making people fearful. The truth is where there is fear,
there is no faith. And when there is faith, there can be no fear. Faith is like
light and fear is like darkness. You can bring light to drive away darkness. But
you cannot bring darkness into a room which is well lit. You cannot, therefore,
claim you have faith in a God, your God, and yet be fearful of either God or
Life or both!!
The media release makes one other ridiculous,
erroneous point. It states that people who consume alcohol are not spiritual!
Spirituality is totally unconditional. Being spiritual means just being. You
can be whoever you are. You don’t have to abstain from anything, you don’t have
to fear anyone, you don’t have to fast, you don’t have to pray and you don’t
have to follow any rituals. You just have to be who you are and enjoy being who
you are. Spiritually empowered people employ this freedom, this fearlessness,
this faith – that they will be taken care of and provided for by the Universe –
to live in bliss. To them nothing is a sin. And nothing is forced. They live
simply – seeing the divinity in themselves and in everyone and everything
around them.
I seriously hope Sri Sri’s ashram did not
issue that release and that the mail I received was just one of those hoax
forwards. If it was indeed a genuine communication, I pity those who put it out
– for they are missing PK’s central
message and shooting the messenger, Aamir, just because he’s seen, per worldly
definition, as a Muslim. PK is not about Hindus and Muslims. It
is not about Hindu Gods and a Muslim God or a Christian God. It is about you
and me and how we are allowing ourselves to be trapped in the vicious cycle of religion,
rituals, godmen and fear. Watch PK if
you can and care. And even if you don’t want to watch it, raise a toast when you
drink tonight!! To Christmas, good health and happiness. My toast,
however, is to the authors of that redoubtable release: “Hey, I drink alcohol…and
I am spiritual”!
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