Sacred Salaam!

Sometimes I do feel it would have been better if I had a choice to voluntarily choose Christ. It is not that I have less respect for the gods of other religions; I have great respect for every spiritual being, because I am convinced that the fundamental principle that unites them is the same, and that goes beyond any religious coloring. For a person who is in search for the deeper principles which govern the universe, all religions are alike, however there are certain facets of a religious tradition which may attract one to it rather than to another. It is like a buffet meal, where you are presented with several dishes, and you may like only one particular dish, and after eating a little of it, you might feel your heart (and also your stomach) is full. But you have not said that other dishes are not as good as this one, and it is not possible for you to taste them all either. But you are happy to have what you like.

If someone were to ask me, what has Christ done to me - I am sure I will have something to say, something from the very personal angle, which one may accept or not! I am not much interested in the controversy between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, but would like to limit myself to what has Christ done to me, in my little life! Strangely Jesus has helped me to get out of the boundaries of the religious circle that had surrounded me all these years. The religion of Christ is a universal religion where all men and women of goodwill can find fulfilment. Christianity is an institution, which has the basic tenets of the teachings of Christ, but has over the years solidified the principles, and have become sacro sanct to them. But Christ goes beyond all religions, and in a sense he was the first humanist, who truly promoted humanism, based on fraternal charity and love!

Jesus has helped me to look at my neighbor in whom lies my salvation, fulfilment and the attainment of my aspirations. It is a call to community living, and he had taught it by example, living with people of different temperaments, different walks of life. I would like to imagine what three years of life with a terrorist (Simon the zealot), public servant (Matthew the tax-collector), agnostic (Thomas), man of temper (Peter), greedy and money-minded (Judas), innocent and too young (John), simple fishermen would have been, but at the end they were transformed men, who could think beyond their narrow peripheries! It appears that at the end, all these men were one in mind, and one in heart. That was the magic of living with Christ has done, and that reckons me to take side with him to transform me as he had done with his apostles!

Jesus was a medicine-man par excellence, for he treated people not based on symptoms, but based on the root causes, which prompted the illness. I tend to believe that those who were cured by Jesus might not have been sick again, because he went to the roots, and once the roots are healed, there is very little for the sickness to surface. He had medicine for all illnesses, most often to psychological and spiritual diseases too. In fact he understood that most of the sicknesses are related to the spheres of psychology or spirituality, and not so much to the body. Today we need to spend thousands of ruppes to diagnose the illnesses that huant us, but being an ace medicine-man, Jesus know what troubled people, just by looking at their faces. If only our doctors today have that ability, many lives of the poor and unaffordables could be saved.

But more than all, Jesus was the revolutionary, who reversed the age-old traditions which kept the human person bound with chains. He freed them from the clutches of tradition and conventions, and breathed in fresh air. He could be called truly a liberator, who placed realistic demands on his disciples, and demands which may even cost them their lives, but with the hope that it is all worth. He is a task-master who likes to push the student to the maximum limits of his/her capacity, but with love and compassion. He was the strange mixture of a demanding and a loving person, who valued people based not on what they had, but what they were, and that is the reason why all people were equal before him. Today I pay my humble tribute to this great person, who has made ripples in my life, and I continue to feel its vibrations as I continue to cherish what he is to me!