O divine Godman when would you spare the soul of my world?

I reckon the lines said by a sensible person in the past that a person cannot be deceived unless the he himself consents to be decieved. To be a bit more clearer, I quote the mordant tongue of my dear friend Chuck Doherty, “If a man is ready to blow, an aspirant will come even from the banks of Lake Titicaca hiring a cab, to make him blow.”

“This country is full of people who are dangerously disciplined”, Doherty once lamented and it was about the people of India. He had always maintained that majority of the people of this country were poor sceptics and if there was a minority who looked like that, they were simply cynics.

Although, I never understood initially what he meant, today I see something identical to Doherty's theory. This is all about a part of the media of Tamil Nadu revealing video clippings of alleged sexual escapades of a Godman in company of a second string South Indian female film artist. More interesting than the news itself has been the response put forth by the people from different quarters in the wake of the incidence.

Doherty would have been delighted to hear a segment of people's view that the Godman could never commit something of the kind owing to his vital divine identity, and therefore the video footage must be the culmination of a spook's manipulations. A different segment that thought differently was of the opinion that such Godmen were the black sheeps that threatened to tarnish the image of the other good and well established Godmen operating in the country.

Thinking of Godmen, they have always been their across the world with prominence. If many were fortunate to have attained the position with meticulous planning bundled with hard work and blessed by a bit of good fortune, at least some have been mercilessly chastised before being raised to the altar of divinity. The individuals of the second group often enjoyed their God-dom as a posthumous honour.

Doherty has always argued that Jesus Christ belonged to this second group. A man with a fabulous personality that he could be rightly deemed as one among the first great revolutionaries if not the first. A true revolutionary - much unlike the present Communists of Kerala and Bengal - who asked his fellow Jews to refrain from immolating their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives along with their hard-earned property to satiate the carnal pleasures of the Jewish priesthood that wielded a compact package of rubbish called Torah with conspicuous vengeance towards mankind.

I never tried to counter Doherty as he said the Man was executed by the Jewish priesthood for no reason other than appealing to the Jewish proletariat to directly interact with their Father (of the Heavens), eliminating the need of middlemen (priests of course) in the process; and in the course of time when these priests found out that after his death people were getting greatly attracted to his preachings, switched attire to pop up as 'Christian Priests' with gusto. The so called Christians, in the words of Doherty, pampered, adulated and at times worshiped these men of great practical wisdom (Preists) throughout the history, as a token of tribute to the glorious revolutionary (Christ) that despised priesthood more than anything in the world.

I remember Doherty saying once that when the priest in white used to repeat the words, 'let us bow to the son of God', he as a young boy had wondered, 'then who pray am I?'.

Leave the international scenario, here in India as well, lesser mortals have through out the history reported being harassed by the so called priesthood who claimed themselves to have evolved from the crown of Brahma the creator, against those wretched beings (Shudras) that came through the appendages of the creator. However, even today these exploited section in India that although seldom tend to hide the fact, cannot carry out their rituals unless their exploiters' prescribing for them the best auspicious time.

The people in Kerala have been fortunate enough to have themselves treated by some great revolutionaries all along the history from the beginning of the 19^th century. I would like to give below one of the most intriguing interpretation of the epic Ramayana, which was presented by an all time great poet and lyricist that lived in Kerala.

According to him, sometime around the Aryan invasion of India, a king send his four wards to a teacher (a celebrated hermit of the era but cannot be a Godman for someone else is in the story to claim that title) who lived further southwards in the peninsula from the capital of the territory ruled by the aforesaid king. In the other part of the  narration, the hermit was persistently harried by a band of weird looking dark skinned human beings who were called demons from the netherworld by him, particularly for their satanic activities such as booing him during his chanting of the mantras and hurling rotten fruits and small sticks and stones at him.

Meanwhile, the eldest of the princes, a handsome youth met with a dark skinned local lass with big round eyes who too was a princess in her own standards. She was, as a matter of fact, the daughter of the tribal (demons') chief. They met frequently and clandestinely to share many things including the vital promise of not parting with each other until death did them apart. Remind you, the prince was as passionate as any other genuine lover boy that he revealed every detail of his to her.

Time rolled on and the day came for the princes to return after the successful completion of their learning at the hermitage, and a healthy part of the royal army had arrived at the spot to escort the princes back to the capital of the kingdom. Then came the crucial demand from the teacher, “where is my fees (Gurudakshina) my dear princes?” “Anything you wish”, came the answer from the elder prince at no waste of time. Then let me have the heads of the Asuras that have always remained a thorn in my flesh, including that of their chief.

This was definitely shocking for the prince in love, although it was something thrilling in the offing for the others present there. The prince pleaded, “But they are naive people who can do you no harm.” “Prince” fumed the sage, “choose between glory and sacrilege.” The army chieftain, the ministers... everyone pressed the prince to be part of the expedition and the young lover was virtually left with no choice but to follow them.”

A carnage resulted with hundreds of weird dark skinned creatures being wasted, and the most touching moment came finally when the tribal chief was surrounded by the royal army, flanked by his daughter and woman. Out came another command from the martinet, let the eldest prince finish them and accomplish the Gurudakshina mission. It was so narrated, “With trembling arms and and an abnormally pulsating heart, the prince destined to be a God, let the shining metal tip of the arrow from his bow pierce the bosom and then the heart of his beloved...his first love, and no one noticed a tear drop escaping his griefstricken eyes that simply refused to follow the trajectory of the arrow sent by his hands.

The poet reveals that the lass in the divine tragedy was none other than Thadaka, the reviled Asura princess of the Ramayana. I have also heard from die-hard leaders of the backward communities - just to read along the lines - that if one never has excavated the fossils of a ten headed giant, creatures of more than fifty feet in height, then someone explain to them who and what were the Rakshasas if they were not their own dark-skinned ancestors. I have also heard such leaders declaring that they would refrain from worshiping a king that ordered to pour molten lead into the ears of a Shudra (man of backward class) that tried to learn the Vedas.

It is quiet natural that one cannot see many temples that worship the Aryan king in this part of the world, say Kerala and Tamil Nadu, although the folk here have great regards for Hanuman the legendary monkey God who is also a part of the great epic. Doherty has always viewed these so called holy literature works as something designed, developed and promoted by the creamy layer simply for the carrying out of their smooth existence. What else can be perceived of these when they unanimously imply God is the ultimate, but God can be tamed using Mantras and the Mantras are working assets of the Priests, therefore Priests are the real Gods.

I have always loved visiting the temple shrine of Sabarimala, a popular pilgrimage destination of South India. I remember the freedom I enjoyed there until the early 90s when I virtually interacted with God trapped in the idol by the powerful priests that strutted across the temple premises paved with raw vintage granite. However, once a wise person asked me to pay some attention to the scripture one could find at the top of the eighteen sacred steps of the Sabarimala temple. Reading it the next time I was there, changed my life thereafter. I thought I was at the wrong end all these years seeking the divine presence in rocks and wooden structures promoted by Godmen and the priesthood. Yes, the three Sanskrit words “Thath Thvam Asi” had virtually changed the world for me.

Although I have always enjoyed and still do so being there at the forest shrine annually. To be frank, I have also had my big disappointments there; the major one of course being this incident that happened in the mid 90s or so when I was ordered by a cop there to keep some distance from the sanctum sanctorum where I used to tie the bell offerings and even to feel the chillness of the walls encompassing the idol. The reason was quite a serious one; a liquor baron had covered the place with gold and frankly until this moment I being an optimist, believe this divine work may be performed by him with the money he had earned by washing cloths and utensils at homes in urban Bangalore, and definitely not using the money earned through intoxicating fellow human beings. The priests of Sabarimala have never cared of anything like that as long as they were fed constantly with valuables.

I presume the devotees as well as the authority over there are today keen on resurrecting the tarnished image of one of the head priests (Thanthri) there. Unfortunately, he too had had his image tarnished when he decided to have an amorous outing out there with a female friend of his. Swamy Nithyananda can definitely not say that he does not have company.

Coming back to Doherty, I do get the essence of his saying that my fellow countrymen have been a bit too much disciplined, when I see them roaming about helplessly seeking simply an opportunity to expiate their wrong deeds of the past after indulging in anything ranging from the destruction of wealth, health and sanctity of the odds to appropriation of lives of human beings.  No wonder, they finally end up in the waiting jaws of the Godmen and priests that pretend to know everything from past to future besides the whereabouts of Gods. Here these people live their lives in too much discipline in the belief that they would attain Enlightenment and Freedom from the leashes of Rebirth (Moksha).

When I write this, another news bit is piercing my senses of tranquility that a number of women and kids somewhere in Uttar Pradesh have lost their lives in a desperate attempt to acquire a square meal (and clothes) that was offered at the abode of another Godman who knew everything about the past and future. If this is the case, I will say that Swami Nithyananda has done no serious crime compared to the former who had blatantly attempted to exploit the very fundamental requirement of the languishing class.

Unless the people in the country think like Doherty that 'if Jesus was the son of God who was he himself', or get the essence of Sabarimala's message 'Thath Thvam Asi' which means That Is You or You Have Me in You (the very teaching of Sanathana Dharma movement's Advaitha (Indivisibility) theory), our land will persistently burgeon such stuff. And if you are game on keeping yourself away from the Sanathana Dharma doctrine, it says that you badly need to identify the God and evil that reside within your very psyche and mortal body. At least here one will have no one else's, no authority's assistance. Self help is the only go, for which one has to immensely believe in him/herself.

Until then ,let me conclude by hoping that the Godman that was caught with a girl friend in a compromising situation is the last of the unholy lot and the surviving rest including the seers that are charged with murder, would adhere to the invisible moral codes given in words by other Godmen and seers. No problem whatsoever, despite all the shortcomings, there are tens of thousands of zombies (Doherty dubbs them so) that are waiting silently and impatiently to help these vermins crawl back successfully. The Godman is dead. Long live the Godman.