Tomichan Matheikal's blog

AI-generated illustration The parish priest of my neighbourhood committed suicide this morning. His body was found hanging from the ceiling. Just a week back a Catholic nun chose to end her life in the same manner at a place about 20 km from my home. In a country where about 500 persons choose death every day, the suicide of two individuals may not create ripples, let alone waves. But, non-believer as I am, I was shaken by these deaths. Christianity is a religion that accepts suffering as a virtue. In fact, the more the suffering in your life, the better a Christian you can be. Follow the path shown by Jesus, that’s what every priest preaches from the pulpit day after day. Jesus’ path is the way of the cross. I grew up in an extremely conservative Catholic family in an equally conservative village in Kerala. I had a rather wretched childhood. But I was taught to find consolation in the sufferings of Jesus. The Passion of Jesus, that’s what it is called in Catholic theology. Tha

  Suffering is the university of egocentrism . Milan Kundera, Czech writer [1929-] Suffering is inevitable. That is a fundamental lesson of life. Religions teach us that, philosophy does, and literature shows the same too. While dealing with the inevitable though unwanted, our options are quite limited. We should change what can be changed and accept what cannot be changed. We may need to adapt ourselves in the face of what we cannot change. Religion, philosophy, the arts, and a lot of things can help us to make life easier in the face of suffering. Aren’t these things primarily meant for that: to help us make life bearable and as pleasant as possible? Why haven’t they been able to achieve their purposes? Obviously, they have not been used rightly. On the other hand, they have been misused by certain people. Religion joined hands with politics and became a tool in the hands of bigots or the power-hungry. Philosophy is dead for all practical purposes, killed by our pursuit of th

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly competitive and hence even more increasingly self-centred. Competition is always about the victory of some individuals over other individuals or groups or even systems. In a capitalist system everyone is everyone else’s potential rival one way or another. This rivalry soon extends to the groups or communities to which the individuals belong. Whole systems like democracy or ideals like secularism can come crumbling down in such a world. Worse, such demolitions may even be seen as virtuous victories of the good over evil. Such battles are rampant in our world today. Some people emerge as glorious victors while some others end up as pathetic losers. These battles need to end. The ideal way is to open our eyes and see the most fundamental reality about ourselves: that we are not only unique and separate individuals but also integral parts of a larger whole. Call the larger whole God if you choose. Call it truth or the sublime or whatever