Religion without Soul

 

While going to convert souls in the jungles of Uttar Pradesh, Rev Josiah was caught by a tribe of cannibals. He was bound to a pole and carried like an animal to the Headman of the cannibals with traditional fanfare. The Headman smacked his lips looking at the chunky body of the well-fed priest and told his people to make the necessary arrangements for cooking him. The cannibals cried ecstatically and got knives and pots and the fireplace ready.

“Oh God!” Rev Josiah cried in consternation. “Are there cannibals even in this IT era?”

Then to his greater surprise, the Headman said in chaste English, “Look, Father, I’m an IITian from Delhi. But tradition is tradition.”

“With an IIT qualification and such extraordinary English, son, how can you eat a fellow human being? Hasn’t your education brought no change at all to you?” The priest wondered aloud.

“Oh, yes,” said the Headman. Then he brought a pair of spoon and fork and holding them up like a proud trophy he said, “Change, Father. We now eat with these.”

I read this parable in a Malayalam weekly this morning and thought it conveyed eloquently the disaster called cultural nationalism in today’s India. We hear religious people – ascetics and godmen and others who have devoted their entire life to the service of god and people – delivering murderous speeches asking followers to pick up arms and indulge in nothing short of genocide. For the sake of gods!

What does such religion mean?

A Jesuit priest, Anthony de Mello, who used to convey the meaning of religion through parables and stories cracked a joke once.

Pilot to passengers in mid-flight: “I regret to inform you we are in terrible trouble. Only God can save us now.”

A passenger turned to a priest to ask what the pilot had said and got this reply: “He says there’s no hope!”

What God meant to the priest in the above flight is what religion means to the advocates of cultural nationalism in today’s India, particularly the ascetics and other leaders.

It is nationalism driven by a religion without soul.

De Mello has illustrated religion without soul through many little stories. Let me tell you one of them.

A sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. “They won’t let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.”

“What are you complaining about?” God asked. “They won’t let me in either.”

Religion is primarily meant to help people to deal effectively with their base emotions. Gods are the only redeeming factors in religions. All the rest is about the quintessential characteristics of homo sapiens: greed, envy, rivalry, egoism, lethargy, gluttony… That’s an endless list. God is supposed to tame those wild shades of our souls. God is the only benign soul. Without that soul, what use is religion?

Most religions have lost their gods today. The present form of Hinduism – packaged as Hindutva – jettisoned millions of gods too soon in the oceans of gau mutra. The place of these gods has been taken by one man – a man without any soul, let alone a religious one.