Apologism of the Religious Kind

Like my earlier blog, this also has it’s trigger in the blog of a friend of mine, describing a religious charity event he witnessed sometime back in the chilly winters of Toronto.

The person observed and participated in a charity food distribution event organized by the local ISKON chapter, accompanied by devotional singing, dancing and the chants of “Hare Krishnaa “ and getting a bit disturbed by what he saw. He accepted that he is a Hindu by belief, and devotee of Sri Krishna and recently been reading the relevant literature of ISKON’s Krishna consciousness.

He may have started his ‘intellectual’ journey, but probably it was too early for him to get seeped into the ‘experiential’ and ritualistic aspects of what he was trying to fathom. Hence his doubts, discomfort and non-acceptance. The deeper bhakti-state of giving over to Krishna would not have allowed for any of the above intellectual/ emotional reaction, because the “me” is gone and only “Krishna” remains anywhere, everywhere.

However, kudo’s to his ability in fathoming his own thoughts and feelings, as a result of this innocuous event. This gave insight to a larger issue afflicting the modern, secular, educated mindset of today’s world.

For lack of better words I would like to call it a rejection, incomprehensibility and fear of the spiritual and related traditions of the culture. What finally emerges out of the material mindset absorbed in rational mathematical logic, is an active shunning of all that’s spiritual, religious and traditional. Finally it manifests itself as an apologetic barrier to anything spiritual. But my view is that the same mathematical logic, and rationality be taken to the extreme, and extended further even to the so called spiritual realm, and it may happen that the spirituality may turn out to be a logical manifestation of the same reality we live in.

Obviously some of the latest historical events and increasing polarization of the world politics around religion are major contributory factors to this mindset of denial. However I would like to speak against this denial, which may create a barrier to getting the most out of our history and traditions for a better today and future. Such denial often stops a free spirit of enquiry, which is detrimental to real knowledge.

Denying religion and a certain cultural ‘fact’ is as good/bad as denying your own roots, or history, but in spite, it remains an unassailable fact. We often see a twisting of historical narrative to further the contemporary gains or the ruling mindset; again a form of denial and inability/ fear of facing the stark reality. Active denial may lead us to a blind spot regarding what had been handed down to us via the evolution of the civilizations, including any good points they may have. Further denial is also a form of ‘extremism’ that many of us abhor. The needed position is not of denial/ apologism but of enquiry, analysis, tolerance and acceptance of what is the contemporary or current state of religiosity. Only when we approach religiosity in an open hearted manner, we may be able to open the bridges across various proponents and pave way for change from the present situation. Some of the best examples of this positive acceptance of spirituality is found in Buddhism as followed by Ashoka, Din-e-Ilahi as initiated by Akbar.

The first step towards an all embracing humanism and true secularity is not denial of faith, especially your own, but a free spirit of enquiry, and acceptance of the historical hand down of traditions. Only then one can begin the journey to multi-faith spirituality, because in essence all are very similar/ close to each other in their fundamentals.

As Mahatma Gandhi said “ I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.”

Let us begin the first step not by denial, but by acceptance, and in the same way reach out to others.
Tathaastu!