Young Jesus goes to join a monastery. A monk who is the ‘guest master’
meets him at the gate and asks him to go back thinking he was just a crazy
young boy.
“God commanded me to come,” says Jesus who is visibly worried.
The monk cackled. He had seen
a good deal in his lifetime and had no confidence in God.
“God is the Lord,” says the monk. “So
he does whatever comes into his head. If he wasn’t able to inflict injustice,
what kind of an Omnipotent would he be?”
The above scene is from The Last
Temptation of Christ, a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. [The lines in italics
are quoted from the novel.]
The predominant theme of the novel is the conflict between the good and
the evil, between the flesh and the spirit. Right at the beginning of the novel
we find Jesus wondering whether God and the devil are different entities at
all. “Who can tell them apart? They
exchange faces,” Jesus reflects.
Both god and devil are within us. Both good and evil are within us. What
most of us do is to externalise them and personify them into God and Satan, one
all-good and the other all-evil. Many of us, especially those who follow the
Semitic religions, also identify the body with evil and the soul or spirit with
good.
In the Prologue to the novel, Kazantzakis says that usually the struggle
between the human and the divine in us is unconscious and short-lived. “A weak soul does not have the endurance to
resist the flesh for very long. It
grows heavy, becomes flesh itself, and the contest ends.” [Emphasis added]
I think the contest ends less dramatically. I think most people don’t
experience the conflict at all because right from birth they are fed ready-made
answers to all spiritual conflicts. My religion did that to me. I was born a
sinner, according to my religion which named the status ‘original sin,’ an
inborn inclination towards sinfulness. So I was baptised and thus cleansed of
that ‘original’ evil tendency. But I remain human (what else?) and hence
possess all the “weaknesses of the flesh”. [Don’t ask what use the baptism was
then. There’s no such logic in religion.]
There are solutions for all those weaknesses. For example, there is a
counter virtue for every “deadly sin”. There is humility for pride, temperance for gluttony, and so on. One readymade antidote for every evil. Or
there is the ritual of confession which can cleanse the evils without much trouble.
These readymade solutions may not satisfy the genuine seeker. That is
why Kazantzakis says that “among the responsible men … the conflict between
flesh and spirit breaks out mercilessly and may last until death.”
I think it is better to take both good and evil as an inseparable
continuum rather than as polarised opposites. Both are potentials within us. It
depends on us to cultivate those which we like. When I cultivate the good
within me, the evil automatically is held under restraint. Rather, I don’t
focus on the evil; I focus on the good. I have noticed how my students make
remarkable improvements in behaviour when I point out the good things about
themselves. I pretend not to see the dark shades. I focus on the goodness and
the goodness flourishes. My perspective is not virtue-sin poles or
venom-antivenom treatment.
I don’t see it as a conflict between the spirit and the flesh. I don’t
see the flesh as evil. The body is good. I love a good meal whenever it is
offered to me and see nothing gluttonous about relishing it. I enjoy a drink
once in a while. I love to listen to music, romantic and melancholy. A
philosophical novel will entertain me better than any of these, of course.
Writing a good blog post also gives me a sense of satisfaction. Now some people
may see some of these as evils. Well, these are my own devils and I accept them. I
don’t fight them because I know there is no need. I know the god within me is
more vibrant. If people don’t see it, that’s not my problem.
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