Skip to main content

Why was Donald Shimoda killed?

 

My copy of Illusions

Richard Bach’s novel, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, was an international bestseller in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It tells the story of Donald Shimoda who was supposed to be a messiah but gave up the mission with the permission of the Infinite Radiant who said to the reluctant messiah, “Not my will, but thine be done. For what is thy will is mine for thee. Go thy way as other men, and be thou happy on the earth.”

The fundamental message of the novel is just that: walk your own way and create your happiness. Only you can do that: walking your way and creating your own happiness. It is your duty to do that too.

This message is repeated like a motif in different words in the novel. “If God spoke directly to your face and said, ‘I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE,’ what would you do then?” This question is put to the reader right at the beginning.

The messiah realises that his teachings and the miracles he performs are doing no good to the people. They want the miracles. But they won’t do what he wants them to do: discover their own ways and travel those happily. Each person has a unique way to travel.

It’s not easy to do that: travelling your way honestly. The world has created a few ways which are taught to be the right ways. We may call them Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc. Some of them may not be religious in appearance though they tend to be little else in practice: Marxism and its various avatars, for example. We are forced to follow one or more of these paths. The world expects that. Otherwise you’d be an outsider.

It's easy to follow the herd. When you choose to step out, you choose truth and hence hardships. You become an undesirable element that forces others directly or indirectly to face their own real selves.

Donald Shimoda walks his own path. He tries to avoid crossing the paths of others for various reasons, the chief of which being that he doesn’t want to do the job of the messiah for which he is sent on the earth. He chooses personal freedom instead. He knows that he can’t save the world anyway. He knows that the world will kill him one day, unable to bear his authenticity, and then worship him as a form of divinity. They won’t follow his teachings even then. They will worship him and pray for his miracles.

Is the man who abandons the mission of his life and follows his heart authentic? Someone accuses Donald of being fake. “Of course I’m a fake!” He says without batting an eyelid. “We’re all fakes on this whole world, we’re all pretending to be something that we’re not.”

Authentic existence: that’s what Donald Shimoda, the messiah who quit, demands. He was authentic. So he was shot dead by a person who followed one of the ways approved by the world.

PS. This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon

Comments

  1. Hari OM
    Thank you for reminding me of this book (and I couldn't help but also recall Johnathan Livingston Seagull!) I devoured and redvoured these books in earlier years... I must reacquaint myself. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jonathan Livingston Seagull is my regular reference in classes and speeches. Two of Bach's best books.

      Delete
  2. Love the picture of the well-read copy! Sounds like an intriguing book. :) Thanks for the recco.

    ReplyDelete
  3. //When you choose to step out, you choose truth and hence hardships.//
    When we read about the fate of Prigozhin, you write this.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ooh I should get around to reading this one now. Being authentic in any way requires courage ~

    ReplyDelete
  5. ...too many people don't understand where happiness comes from. We each have to make it for ourselves. Have a happy week.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I do not understand the last sentence at all. He wasn't approved by the world, so was 'shot dead', as you put it. Seems like you want to be more sensational than actually thinking. Totally unnecessary ending.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Dopamine

Fiction Mathai went to the kitchen and picked up a glass. The TV was screening a program called Ask the Doctor . “Dopamine is a sort of hormone that gives us a feeling of happiness or pleasure,” the doc said. “But the problem with it is that it makes us want more of the same thing. You feel happy with one drink and you obviously want more of it. More drink means more happiness…” That’s when Mathai went to pick up his glass and the brandy bottle. It was only morning still. Annamma, his wife, had gone to school as usual to teach Gen Z, an intractable generation. Mathai had retired from a cooperative bank where he was manager in the last few years of his service. Now, as a retired man, he took to watching the TV. It will be more correct to say that he took to flicking channels. He wanted entertainment, but the films and serial programs failed to make sense to him, let alone entertain. The news channels were more entertaining. Our politicians are like the clowns in a circus, he thought...

Stories from the North-East

Book Review Title: Lapbah: Stories from the North-East (2 volumes) Editors: Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Rimi Nath Publisher: Penguin Random House India 2025 Pages: 366 + 358   Nestled among the eastern Himalayas and some breathtakingly charming valleys, the Northeastern region of India is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, each with distinct traditions, attire, music, and festivals. Languages spoken range from Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic tongues to Indo-Aryan dialects, reflecting centuries of migration and interaction. Tribal matrilineal societies thrive in Meghalaya, while Nagaland and Mizoram showcase rich Christian tribal traditions. Manipur is famed for classical dance and martial arts, and Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh add further layers of ethnic plurality and ecological richness. Sikkim blends Buddhist heritage with mountainous serenity, and Assam is known for its tea gardens and vibrant Vaishnavite culture. Collectively, the Northeast is a uni...

Dine in Eden

If you want to have a typical nonvegetarian Malayali lunch or dinner in a serene village in Kerala, here is the Garden of Eden all set for you at Ramapuram [literally ‘Abode of Rama’] in central Kerala. The place has a temple each for Rama and his three brothers: Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. It is believed that Rama meditated in this place during his exile and also that his brothers joined him for a while. Right in the heart of the small town is a Catholic church which is an imposing structure that makes an eloquent assertion of religious identity. Quite close to all these religious places is the Garden of Eden, Eden Thoppu in Malayalam, a toddy shop with a difference. Toddy is palm wine, a mild alcoholic drink collected from palm trees. In my childhood, toddy was really natural; i.e., collected from palm trees including coconut trees which are ubiquitous in Kerala. My next-door neighbours, two brothers who lived in the same house, were toddy-tappers. Toddy was a health...