Man of Different Mettle

Dear Father Ignatius, I am not patient enough to count how many years ago you had left this beautiful world, but I can only say that it was more than 450 years ago, but your memory is still fresh in my mind. Because there is something in me which I can proudly claim to be Ignatian (see how easily you have become a type, like Aristotelian, Hegelian, Marxian…), and the world around me is only happy to see me as belonging to your ‘type’. Sometimes people do frown at me, because there is a trace of idiosyncrasy, and who today is not idiosyncratic, tell me?

But jokes apart, after going through 16 years of training (the world outside calls it grilling, drilling and brain-washing), I could not help become quite similar to you to a certain extent. But I wish I were more like you, so that I can have the fire to enflame everyone I come in touch with. The world today is too lazy, complacent, too nervous to take risk, and too calculative in its moves, too frightened to dream big, too comfortable in their little ghettoes. The world today needs more men who can fight and yet not heed the wounds.

When I first heard how you left the comfort of your cozy life in the palace, the dreamgirl you could have possibly won, after that wretched setting of the knee bones without local anasthesea, I was quite alarmed. How you dared to leave all, and don the sack-clothes of a mendicant! No, it is not possible for me to do the same today; your world was quite different, and in today’s world, I need to count each of my steps, or else I may be down in the gutters.

You had no shame! Thank God for it, you were able to sit in the company of small children and study, and slowly move to heights to even complete your MA in the prestigious University of Paris. You had experienced what a prison life is, having yourself stayed there twice, for the mistakes you did not commit. We are too self-conscious, and safeguard our sanctity as if our lives depend on it. If we are able to drop all shame and dare to walk before God , there can be no better security than this.

I marvel your indomitable courage to even rise up against the mighty empires, kings and popes. And strangely no one ever dared to oppose you, because they all knew you were a man made of a different mettle, and they cannot compete with you. The guts you had made men and women of your times to tremble, and the God you believed in had blessed you with a spirit which cared for no human appreciations and applause. I take my hats off to you, Father Ignatius. If only people can see in me the Lord you so lovingly served all your life, I need no better blessing on your feast day.

Lame to Game

What can a lame former knight of the fifteenth century offer to the modern management, group dynamics, spirituality and psychiatry of the twenty-first century? One might wonder, if I was only kidding. It is next to impossible for such a person to have any trace of memory in modern minds, were he not someone who has etched his name in the annals of history. But it would be interesting to note what his contributions to the modern world are, before reckoning him with laurels.

This dreamer, who had far too great ambitions to win the whole world, had formed a band of men, who today number about 18,000, spread around the world, involved in anything that a human mind can imagine, and his successors are even today looked upon as the ‘black pope’; if there is any group of men that the hierarchical Church would lean on at the time of any major crisis, it is these men, ever ready to give even their life to save the Vicar of Christ and the Church militant.

Church militant? He was a knight, and so he could think of the Church and the Society only in military terms; was he not the first Superior General to head the band of men, who called themselves the Society of Jesus? His Spiritual Exercises today is considered a great spiritual classic, and men and women who long to have an experience of God in the midst of all the hussle and bussle take this small book, and get themselves lost in the forest of love and God’s compassion.

If the company that he founded along with nine other companions were to survive five centuries, it is no mean thing. He had a method of forming his men that even management curricula will fall short; men who were not even above average, became firebrand missionaries, teachers, social workers, thinkers, writers, researchers, and inventors. What ignited these men that they are able to surpass all human expectations and calculations? What is the magic behind these men?

Ignatius of Loyola was too short in height in comparison to the six feet men and women; he seemed to have looked quite handsome in his younger days, but that was not the case in his older days; he clothed with rags, and lived such a miserable life in the heart of Rome, bearing all privation happily, but pouring all his efforts in forming his men, giving them council, writing letters to them (already in a matter of about 10 years, he seemed to have written over 3000 letters). His legacy lives on, in the men ready to fight any battle, be it moral, social, religious, economic; name it and they are ready to fight. If one lame had surrendered his sword at the foot of Mother Mary, today 18,000 men are ready to fight, not with swords of steel, but with swords of faith in God and humanity, trust in the age old wisdom of their founder, confidence in the five century old tradition… If one were to claim that Ignatius has not given to the world anything positive, that would be the greatest lie ever!

God of Taboos

Taboos are cousins of superstitions, and in the modern world we would think there is nothing that can strictly be called a taboo. What had been a taboo for several centuries is an accepted fact, but whether we like it or not, taboos are tied to our personality and our upbringing. And to make things worse, what is a taboo in one country is not so in another, and one is left to wonder whether to consider it as a taboo or not.

Certain words are considered taboo words, and we would not utter them, even if we were to die. And if we consider them carefully there are many such words; for instance, inner clothes and genitals are considered 'bad' words, and we would go all the way to find some other soft words to imply to them. We have grouped them under taboo terms, and even those who have studied science would hesitate to use these words. Is there not something for us to think if this is really going to help us look forward?

Tribal communities are known to be holding on to certain taboos; for instance, for each of the sept, there will be one particular animal whose meat they cannot eat, and one particular tree, which they cannot fell, because they are related to the sept by blood. Thank God for this taboos, among the tribals, still we have most of the trees intact. But times are fast changing, and soon there will be too few tribals who would be honoring their ageold taboos, and protect flora and fauna at least within their localities.

There are still social and cultural taboos; in the Indian society, it is a taboo for the woman to even touch a plough; similarly it is a taboo for men to fetch water from the well. But the number of taboos are fast disappearing, and soon we may come to a situation, when it will be quite hard to explain to the then generations what a taboo is.

God is not spared from these taboos; there are certain names of God, which are considered taboos, and therefore we have to find other words to explain the same. The four letter Hebrew word for God has been considered a taboo word, and in order to respect the sentiments of Jews in abstaining from pronouncing the word, the Catholic Church has instructed her children to that effect. And yet behind all the taboos, one will be able to seek and find the 'God of taboos'.

Mute Witnesses of Human Malady

It suddenly occurred to me what the so-called inanimate beings which surround us would tell us if they had the gift of speech; what they would do, were they given the capacity to think. If only the walls were able to speak, then the humanity would be on the road. To the great advantage of humanity, we have placed around us mute witnesses, who can only see and hear and not speak. The amount of filth and rot that we carpet each day is known only to these things which see each of our movements. And we can rest in peace that they will never charge us, pull us up, or retaliate for all the evil we had done.

The cold-blooded murder that a person might have committed, making sure that no other human being on earth witnessed it. If the walls, furniture, books, bed, were to bear witness in the court, the world would be very different. They would have been able to prove beyond all doubt that there is no worse creature on earth than the human beings, and no better creature on earth than the very humanity. Unfortunately the earth is people with the good and the bad, and the only authentic and sincere creatures who can ever separate the ripe from the rotten ones are these.

I were God, then at least on an experiment, I would have given the gift of speech to these inanimate beings, at least for an hour. It might be too much of a time to really destroy humanity, so I might consider reducing the time to ten minutes. But imagine if all the bricks were to bear witness to what humanity has done to the universe, then their anger can burn the earth, and turn it to a hell. But then, evil may be destroyed for ever.

The most noble people sometimes are called the mad, the insane. These are often the people, who can speak to the so-called inanimate beings with the same ease and confidence that they are capable of communicating with the rational human beings. But we the ‘ordinary’ persons cannot accept such people as belonging to our category. Perhaps there is greater truth in being insane than humanly sane. When an insane person speaks to the clouds, to rocks and stones, to cows and buffaloes, do they not soar to a higher level than of humanity?

It would be a great blessing of God, if we are given the faculty to be blind to see the cruelty done to humanity, to nature and to the universe, to be deaf to the curses and insults humanity heaps on one another, to be insensitive to the culture of violence and torture that mindless men and women inflict of the innocent and the voiceless, to be out of my head to forget what is happening around me, so that the human pollution does not take away the spontaneity and innocence I entered the world with. In other words, I too wish to be turned into another mute witness to the maladies of the universe, and yet not touched by them.

Personal Discernment

I propose the following simple process of personal discernment, basing on the method proposed by Ignatius of Loyola. Take about half a day to be by yourself to enter into a deeper communion with God, to discern what he wants of you. It will be better to go to a quiet place, where you can be by yourself, where there will not be anyone to disturb you.

Place yourself in the presence of God, and seek his Holy Spirit to come upon you, and open your heart and mind to know his most holy will for you, and a receptive heart that will cling on to whatever He might reveal to you. Seek the assistance of our Lady too to help you in your search.

Take a sheet of paper and put down all the reasons why you should take up the new appointment in the new place. Put down all the reasons, both subjective and objective. For example, the people there are in need of help; there are too few members of the congregation in number; with earlier experience in social work, you can help them coordinate the works better, etc. Take enough time to do this; don't be in a hurry. Think of all possible reasons; make as much as possible an exhaustive list. Take about one hour to do this.

Now hold this paper in your hands, and spend about fifteen minutes in prayer before the Lord; in your mind go through the points you have written. Listen to the whispers of the Spirit; what is the Lord telling you here and now. Don’t be analytical or rational, but let your heart vibrate with the points you have sincerely put down.

Take another sheet of paper, and now write down all the reasons why you should accept the assignment, but continue with your present ministry. Remember, by this time, you are not too attached to remaining in the same place, you should have reached indifference. Don't think about what you would do here in the future; that is secondary. The main issue is to accept the new assignment or not. Stay with that. Make an exhaustive list of the reasons why you should not go there; such as, you feel you can serve the Lord better by teaching; you feel confident the Lord is calling you to be a here, etc. Spend about an hour to do this exercise.

Again hold the paper in your hands, and spend about fifteen minutes before the Lord, considering all the points you have put as against the new assignment. Listen to what the Lord is telling you; listen to his whispers. Be attentive to his voice speaking at the depth of your being.

Now place both the papers in front of you, and have a good look at them; weigh both of them; note which one weighs more. Which paper has more substantial reasons; don't be biased, but honestly and objectively see where you find weighty reasons. It may not be very difficult to find out which paper weighs more. After having a look at both the papers together, close your eyes, and seek the Spirit's assistance and guidance to make a right choice. Which of the two is more pleasing to the Lord? At the end of about fifteen to thirty minutes, you would be able to tell for yourself this is the option the Lord is showing to me. End the personal discernment with a thanksgiving prayer to the Lord, to his Spirit and to our Lady, and seeking the Father’s blessings to confirm your decision.

When ways part

It may be important to realise that when we join a religious congregation we keep ourselves fully at the disposal of the congregation to do what is most in need of; the need of the congregation is the area I have to prepare myself to fulfill. There are chances that what the congregation might want of me will be quite different from my personal likes and desires. I personally feel that the need of the congregation has to take precedence over the personal interest. That is why when some of our fathers complain that they were prepared for school and are asked to go to a parish, we tell them that it is the special charism of the Society to go where there is need.

It is my experience, when we happily accept the need of the congregation as our personal priority, then there are chances that our ministry will be fruitful, and life joyful, or if you want a business term, successful. Otherwise life will always be a burden, because the work we do does not emerge from our heart, but from a compulsion of the superiors. We cannot always expect to get the appointments we personally like. It may be good to ask ourselves this simple question : Have I joined this congregation to do what I like, or to do what God wants of me?

But how do I know what God wants of me, how do I discern the will of God for me here and now? It will be good to go through a process of personal discernment before responding to the request of your superiors. In order to really discern God's will for me, I have to arrive at true indifference; this means I should be prepared happily either to take up the new assignment or not, whichever will be more pleasing to the Lord. It may not be impossible to arrive at such a mental disposition, if one earnestly desires it.

If I am more inclined towards one option, I should pray that I may choose the other, the one which my heart is not prepared to consider at this moment of time. Ignatius would call this 'agere contra' (to act against) the natural inclination of the heart. In your case, if you are not in favor of accepting the new assignment, you should pray to God that you may have a desire to accept it joyfully. If you reach such a stage, and are indifferent to both the choices, then you can start the personal discernment process.

It will be good to bear in mind that as ordinary weak human beings, the will of God comes to us through persons, events, and the whispers of God at the depth of our being. For the religious often the will of God is expressed through the directives of our superiors. Ignatius has shown that following the directives of the superiors (even when they sound unreasonable and ridiculous), maybe a surer way of following the will of God for me here and now! This however, may not be in consonance with what my personal discernment shows. Accepting it then makes me free from all the mental and physical tension I may go through for no use.

Miracle at your doorstep

The rain-soaked earth had a unique fragrance, which perhaps no perfume-maker can fake; nature has the copyright, and no one can tamper it. Thank God for it; the Americans may still be trying to fake it, or claim it (as they do, even for the things which have not been discovered or invented!). One needs to feel the earth, the soil still holding grains of rain, as if they were all too full with the sap of nector. The trees stood dripping drops of water, as if the small children after bath were standing with water dripping, waiting for their mother to wipe them. Nature had her own arrangement. Gentle breeze wiped the trees and hugged them gently, warmly.

The nocturnal creatures were in full form; the bats moved about frantically smelling the earth, sitting on the cold tree branches, and still wondering what magic has cast a spell on the earth that they were unable to realize it is the same earth they had known before. There was a silence in the midst of the traffic noise; one has to wade through the noise and din of the neighborhood, the fan, and even one’s own heart-beat. The silence can be heard so loudly that all other sounds may fail to compete with it.

No, dark clouds had decided to stay by in order to let the earth has its thirst quenched. The sun had let the childish pranks of the clouds take their turn, as he stood by looking tenderly at the earth he had been giving light for several millennia. The mighty sun stood helpless as the dark clouds showed their back to him, with tattoo marks, No Entry Zone! The momentary passing clouds dared to challenge the mighty sun!

It is not easy to feel the pain and agony of Mother Earth, as rain drops fall on to her lap, varying their pace and intensity, like the ayurvedic therapy with oil that fall on the forehead of persons drop by drop. But the earth stood still. Human beings have covered her body with a layer of impenetrable substance, cement and mortar, and the waters flowed lazily to the drains, but Mother Earth stood still thirsty. Luckily there were pores, through which she could try to wet her tongue. But it would take centuries for her to really quench her thirst.

One of the greatest miracles of nature is the rains; one needs a thousand eyes to behold the rains lashing on arrogant men and women, playing hide-n-seek with pavement dwellers, chase hopelessly those who had no umbrellas, drop heavily on the bald-headed, snap the little clothes that the women carefully wrapped around, give yet another chance for the lovers to get wet. You do not need to pay to witness this great miracle; all you need to is open the windows and doors, and you have a life-changing experience awaiting you.

Designing Desires

Is it possible to desire something in a controlled manner? Or to put it in other words, how can I control what I desire, especially if it is socially forbidden or culturally taboo? Often one feels that desires are beyond one’s control, and once they go out of one’s hand, they can be the cause of one’s downfall. But it is not impossible to put a brake to the desires which may cost one a lot, and that may demand certain amount of discipline on one’s part. But let us be clear from the start that desires by themselves are neutral, and their effect will depend largely on how we approach them.

There are two ways of approaching our desires, be they gentle, generally acceptable, sign of decency and decorum or the forbidden one’s. One may shy away from the forbidden one’s, because desiring it point blank will only win the frown of those in society; so it is better to forego them, though the heart may desire it a lot. In some cases, such persons may seek to fulfill such desires alone, in a personal way, without the knowledge of others. Desires that are entertained in private may often become problem areas to individuals, and may corrupt his/her mind.

It is not always easy to overcome certain desires which are deeply ingrained into our selves; however an awareness of these desires and their effect on oneself will be not only helpful, but also save one from dangerous situations. But the socially forbidden desires and the taboo areas are sensitive areas one has to deal with greater care, lest the elders and seniors in society are not scandalized.

It is important if we really entertain the desires, which are beyond our reach. There was a young brother who went to a priest for counseling, and told the priest that he was having bad thoughts. The priest asked him if the thoughts were entertaining him, and the brother told him that the thoughts were in fact entertaining him, and he was enjoying it. It is possible that often we may be carried away by the thoughts which may transport us to a different world, even if it is only momentarily.

The desires determine what sort of persons we become; we become often what we desire, and it is not very difficult to find out what one might desire from what sort of person s/he is. In other words, our personality betrays our desires. Those who desire values of higher and nobler nature become men of that sort, and those who desire baser elements and aspects of life, become wo/men of that sort. But it is impossible to escape the world of desires, even if Buddha had warned us that they are the root cause of all evil in the world. It is only divine help which can help us safeguard us from unhealthy and unproductive desires.

Space Available!

It is said that the permanent place that we can ever claim for ourselves is the six feet of earth that we would be lain on; in fact, it cannot be considered permanent because soon after our bodies are decayed, and when there is a need to bury someone else in the same place, they would dig up the very place, and if they are considerate bury our bones in another place, this time maybe just a foot long pit. But what a racket we see in our cities and towns, people pawning all their possessions to purchase land! The land price has escalated in the recent years, thanks to the realtors who know how to incite the hearts of people to seek after the space they can never carry with them.

But the tragedy is it is the land that had been hitting the front page of newspapers in this part of the country over the past few years : be it Nandigram or Singur or Lalgarh, it is fight for space. There are political parties who have joined the innocent peasants to make the fight for space a political issue, and there are people who are reaping a very high dividend, thanks to their involvement in the struggles of the landless farmers of these places. That for sure is the one that deals with geographical space. But there are other spaces we may need to look into, in order to really find the significance of space.

Psychological space deals with the attitude which says how much do we allow other people to enter into our lives, our hearts. There are many people, who cannot confide with anyone, and will not easily open their hearts for others to enter in. They are careful, cautious, and calculative in all human relations. They may even look for what benefit they would get as a result of permitting a person to enter into their hearts, lives. Our lives will be enriched in the same proportion as we let other people occupy our heart and lives.

Social space is the one which deals with the familiarity we exercise with the people around us; how much do we allow other people to come close to us. Are we anthropophobic, experiencing certain amount of fear for human persons, and therefore do not let ourselves freely mingle with others? In a crowd, do I allow myself to remain alone, or do I allow myself to mingle with the people, even strangers and make them my own at the end? The longer the distance I keep with the people I live with, the more difficult it will be for me to experience human cooperation.

Spiritual space is the one I create between me and the power beyond me; in other words, it is the meeting place of my inner being and the cosmic being. It is the place where I find myself as the true image and likeness of the creator, and can experience, even if it is just for a fraction of a second, union with God, cosmos, or nature. It is a moment when I can forget the world around me, and be in peace (ananda). Until I create this space for me, I may continue to be a wo/man restless, anxious, fearful, seeking the one which alone can reach me to a place of all solace and consolation.

Back Home

Home is where your heart is, and where you feel yourself as you truly are. I am no netizen, but coming back to the blog after so many months is like a home-coming; but this time there is no promises, and no excuses. There is a time for everything, and that is true for this blog too. We realize how cozy it is here, only when we are faced with the lack or absence of it. Is not this a space that we all look forward to - though in an altogether different sense, in a psychological sense!

We live in a world where we are squeezed from all corners, and sometimes we might find it hard even to breathe. We would long to get out of the normal crowd, normal people, to be by ourselves, to breathe easy, to smell the neighbor's kitchen, to gaze at young man/woman next door, to feel the chill air dashing through, to taste one's own saliva (an experience we had long forgotten), and to realize that we are still hale and hearty.

Every time when we get back to our familiar grounds, we are not the same; we bring home our own bags and baggage, and it might take a while to unpack our past and get back to our present. But is there a problem in returning to our present with the baggage of our past, still tied to our shoulders? Of course there is. Until we put the baggage aside, and enter into the present, with all its flavors, we may not be fully ourselves.

Home, sweet home! Just think of the people who do not have a place which they can call their own; there is no word 'home' in their dictionary. How are we to regard them? The nomads, the homeless, the pavement dwellers, the platform children, those who live in creaky shackles, those who count their days in slums which may be burned at any moment, or be thrown away on any day, with no prior notice! Are these too true human persons, like you and me? How can we consider these people as citizens of this nation, when their basic right to shelter is deprived. What can you and I do about it?

We are not gods, and there is no magical quality given to us, so that we could create another tier over our sky, and let those who live on the pavements enjoy the comfort of a home! If only that is made possible, how happy will we be to rise above the earth, and live in the midst of clouds; we will then play hide-and-seek with the clouds, enjoy the afternoon siesta swaddled by the cool clouds, and curse the earth for the injustice it perpetrates joining our voices with the thunder. If only we are gods!