Skip to main content

Religious or Virtuous?


Very few Popes of the Catholic Church were saints.  Far from being saints, many of them were remarkably depraved compared to the common layperson whom their religion promised to redeem from sinfulness. 
It is not easy to combine worldly power and spiritual sanctity.  Authentic spirituality is a highly personal affair though it can and does wield much power over other people.  The power that Mahatma Gandhi wielded over many of his followers was spiritual to a great extent.  The Buddha and Jesus also wielded spiritual powers.  Unlike them, Gandhi did not become a god because of the time in which he lived.  Like Jesus, however, he was martyred by his own truth.
The power that Jesus, Gandhi and others like them wield is quite different from the kind wielded by, say, Hitler or Osama bin Laden.  It is the power of the truth they believed in and put into practice in their life.   The power that Hitler and Osama possessed was political and hence worldly.  The power that most religious leaders exercise even today is too earthly to be spiritual of any sort.
Spiritual power sees sin or evil as the enemy, while worldly power perceives certain communities of people as the enemies.  The Jews were the enemies for Hitler.  Non-Muslims, particularly the Western Christians, were Osama’s enemies. 
Today, we have a lot of leaders who fight in the name of religions.  None of them has any more spiritual authority than the depraved Popes of the Church.  They are potential conquerors and actual killers.  Their species is multiplying rapidly in our world.  The recent communal disturbance that broke out in a small region of Assam and went on to grip many parts of India is a proof of the decadence of religion today.  The divorce of religion from spirituality seems to be complete now.
Yet it is most likely that political parties with religious garbs will come to power in many countries including India in the days to come.   
Religion is merely a means for covering up our vices, not for curing us of them.
What if a genuinely spiritual person were to emerge today?  He or she would be eliminated – most probably by the priests if not by political leaders – even as Jesus was, even as Gandhi was.  Why?
A genuinely spiritual person would hurt the vanity of the ordinary people who would rather take pride in their little acts of goodness like the weekly worship in a church or temple or mosque, donations for charity, or participation in an anti-corruption rally organised by an apparent do-gooder.  Worse, a genuinely spiritual person would frighten the average believer with his/her inimitable goodness.  [Cf. Bernard Shaw’s preface to Saint Joan]
It is far more advisable to be religious than virtuous!  It has always been so.  Ask the ghost of Socrates, if you don’t believe me.
But there are genuinely virtuous people in this world.  Quite many.  They wisely choose to lead private lives. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. mandakolathurAugust 30, 2012 at 5:11 PM

    Matheikal,

    I don't think the virtuous would identify themslves as such. That could become a black mark on their nature. There is really no need for them to hide or go incognito.

    It is like Moses writing the Pentateuch and yet he has God saying in tit that Moses is the humblest!

    RE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 30, 2012 at 5:37 PM

      Of course, Raghuram, the joy of the virtuous is their virtues themselves; they don't need any certificate for them.

      Delete
  2. UnknownSeptember 9, 2012 at 2:02 PM

    Thoughtful piece. I'd prefer to refer to Gandhi as having being killed by Hindu fanatics, though. Reminds us who the enemy is.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The
62 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so
39 comments
Read more

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r
34 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
36 comments
Read more