Strength of the Weak

There is not a single soul on earth who can claim before God to be strong enough to face all the trials and tribulations of the world; there is no one who can claim innocent before the throne of God. There is a patch of weakness and sinfulness ingrained in each one of us, and no one is spared from this. But this is no matter to worry about, because when we acknowledge our weaknesses, we can experience the strength that comes from God. In fact, those who see their sinfulness and weaknesses before God and acknowledge them are no longer weak and fragile, but are strong persons, because it is the Lord who grants them his own strength to fight against all evils which enslave them. Therefore if I want to experience the strength and power of God, the only thing that I need to do is to acknowledge my weaknesses before him, and trust in his providence to strengthen me in his own time, in his own way.

There are people who cannot see their weaknesses, and would go all length to justify each and every action of theirs, and may pass the blame on to their neighbors, and even to God. These people often look for alibi, scapegoats to pass the bug on to some others. They cannot face their own nakedness, and the blot of sinfulness stare at them and it could become unbearable for them. But who can deny the human nature which is there in me, which makes me think that I am the most perfect person that is possible on earth! I would go no justifying my actions, heaping lie upon lie, until the whole mound crashes and I am made a laughing stock before all. I might then see the Lord standing at a distance and smiling at me. He might be just as helpless as I had been, but the only consolation I could have now is his very presence.

The psalms reiterate in unequivocal terms how God comes to the aid of the weak and the feeble; he gives them the power to stand against all the powers of the world, and they would be able to stand before kings and emperors and speak their mind, and still no one would lay their hands on them. Or take the case of Moses, the man who stammered, and had no gift of speech. ‘But, how can I? I do not know how to speak’ Moses complains to the Lord, and the Lord gives him Aaron to be his mouthpiece. What is the situation of Isaiah and Jeremiah? The weak persons become the champions of God’s justice and retribution. There are several examples for the weak people, who had been strengthened by the Lord, and they found their lives taking a U-turn thereafter. It can happen in my life too; the same Lord can make me stand erect by the strength he would shower upon me.

I cry to the Lord and tell him that I am utterly powerless to withstand the storms that threaten my life, and he looks at me lovingly and asks me to put my trust in him. Paul was such a man, who was conscious of his weaknesses, and the riddle of life – he could not do the good that he wanted to do, and was doing just the evil that he did not want to. This is a great irony of life, and Paul could not be freed from this predicament. He felt helpless and the Lord stood by his side and provided him with the strength to accept life with all the light and shadows. We have no authority to question the Lord’s ways; they may be quite contrary to human thinking, but all generations would prove that there can never be better justice than in the Lord. If I do not surrender myself to him, and acknowledge my weaknesses before his presence, I might be slowly sinking in my own sinfulness.

The Lord looks at our hearts and not our physique. We have the beautiful story of the anointing of David by prophet Samuel, who looking at the brothers of David thinks one of them should have been chosen by God; but God warns the prophet and tells him not to look at the physique because the Lord looks not at the body, but the heart. A heart that is broken and is supple before the Lord can win the favor of the Lord and he would shower his strength on his chosen and help restore life. Life cannot drown us, so long the Lord is at our side; but if we decide to take full control over life, and do not allow the Lord to take control over our lives, then we might have to regret. Today my only prayer before the Lord is that I might see my nakedness before my eyes and acknowledge my weaknesses before the Lord, who alone can strengthen me and make me his very own!

Walking the Path

God may only show the way, and it is for us to walk the path; after all, God cannot force us to walk the entire journey. As the famous Indian proverb goes, we may only take the horse to the waterside, but we cannot force it to drink water. The drinking part has to be done by the horse. When we are confronted by problems and challenges, God may help us, but he may not force us to be freed from the tricky situation. We need to cooperate with God in order to help ourselves. If God were to force us to live in safety and security, then it would not be we who live, but it would be God, who would be living our lives, and that would be quite contrary to the plan of God. He may provide us with the finest food, but we need to undertake the eating part; he cannot eat for us.

God invites us to help ourselves, though he does his part in clearing the hurdles which block our way to freedom and happiness. There are numerous miracles that Jesus performs, where he invites the sick to do their part to be completely healed. Look at the story of the ten lepers coming to Jesus and asking him to heal them; Jesus who respected the role of the high priests, tells the lepers to show themselves to the high priest… that is the little bit that they could do without much difficulty. The second part of the story only shows how wicked and cunning we could be, forgetting the goodness of God, and even failing to be grateful to him for the healing we have received. The Gospel says that as they were going to the high priest, they all were healed, and only a Samaritan returns to thank God.

Or let us take the story of Namaan from the Old Testament… the prophet had invited him to go and dip seven times in the Jordon river, so that he might be cleansed of leprosy. He was indignant, the Bible says, because he claimed there were cleaner rivers such as the Euphrates, and why he should have come all the way… But strangely what God asks of those who seeking healing is something so negligible and insignificant that we might think it silly and too trivial. If Namaan was too upset for being asked to take a dip in Jordon river, he might not have experienced healing. Perhaps we might be prepared to do something more demanding and challenging, but to do what is silly and trivial is too hard for us; if God does the 80 per cent of the job of healing, he wishes us to do the 20 per cent, to bring home the point that we have our role to play in the process of healing, for part of the healing comes from within our own selves.

We could take the story of Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, and now they have come to bank of the Red Sea, and find it difficult to decide what they would do. Was it impossible for God to separate the waters so that his people could walk through it? Then why should he instruct Moses to tap his rod on the water, so that the water might divide? Similarly, when the people of Israel were asking for water, the Lord asks Moses to strike the rock with his rod, and water gushes forth. What is the point in these stories that God seeks the instrumentality of human persons? God is all powerful and nothing is impossible for him, and yet he depends on the human persons to bring to fruition his own divine plan, and therefore we become the collaborators in God’s salvific plan. For God, the little that we might offer to him is sweeter and tastier than all the rest.

Let me conclude with the famous story of the widow’s mite; what she had offered to the temple treasury is insignificant, and not worth mentioning, but Jesus takes note of this gesture of the widow, and appreciates her for the generosity with which she had offered to the temple. What is more important here is not how much she had contributed, but with what disposition she had done this act of contributing to the temple. One thing is sure, God cannot demand from us something which we cannot afford to give him, and he would ask us only what we can happily give to him, and he could multiply manifold what we offer him. Let us remember the wonderful story that Rabindranath Tagore narrates in his Song-Offerings about the Greedy (Kripon) man, who offers one gain of rice to the king who begged of him, and finds on reaching home that the grain he had gifted to the king had returned to him as golden grain, and he cries bitterly, ‘Why did I not give all that I had?’

Life-promoting at all cost

No human person or the social structure on earth under whatever pretext, has the moral authority to take the life of a human person. Sometimes I fear we have given too much liberty to the state and the state machinery to play with the lives of its citizens at will, with very little care and concern for their lives. The human made hunger and starvation in certain parts of the world, and the growing colossal waste of edible things in other parts of the planet make one to think if God had created two kinds of human beings. But that is only one side of the spectrum, where we witness people dying en masse due to mismanagement of the earth’s resources. If the state had wisely allocated the natural resources to her citizens, such a thing may not happen.

I tend to believe that the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis summarizes the entire history of the human race. If we look carefully at the way how different incidents and events in the first few chapters represent epoch-making events of the world’s history, we are awe-stuck. Let me take the story of Cain and Abel to illustrate how what transpired between the two brothers is symbolic of what is happening even today in our neighborhood. Cain and Abel are, to use a term popularized by Carl Jung, archetypes of certain sections of the society. From a simplistic point of view, they represent the good and the evil, but looking at from a deeper perspective they represent the life-promoting and life-denying forces.

In every place where life is denied, either voluntarily or involuntarily, then the spirit of Cain is at work, and wherever we encounter life is promoted and safeguarded at all cost, then the spirit of Abel is at work. Whatever be the situation and partiality that became apparent for Cain, he had no right to take the life of his brother Abel. He could never justify what he had done. No death can be final, but it might only unearth some other dirty demons out of the cupboards. In the Bible the event has been presented in a dramatic way, as if the spirit of Abel crying for justice in the presence of God. If such is true, then God should be spending sleepless nights each day, because we cannot imagine how many lives are taken forcefully each day.

One of the primary responsibilities of every state is to promote life of her citizens and provide avenues for them to nurture and cherish life. The state cannot put her citizen in an endangering situation, leave alone put them at the forefront of battlegrounds, where their lives would be at stake. Human race had fought many a battle, where millions of men, women and children had breathed their lost, in order to protect the selfish motives of a handful of political leaders, who desired to have their way, at the loss of these men and women. In the name of national security, every nation spends billions of dollars in order to keep the aliens away; protecting the lifeless borders is one thing, and killing the intruding the ‘foreigners’ is another issue.

Everyone on earth can be a life-promoter, in whatever little way it is possible. We do not need to do great things, but we could do simple things through which we could safeguard the life of a person or two. If every individual on earth vouches to protect the life of the people around, and go to all extend to promote life, then the world would be a different place altogether. Evil might be fleeing from the face of the earth too soon. It is possible for every person to do this simple act of charity : each day as I wake up I could whisper to myself that I would promote life of the persons I shall be encountering this day, and will not be the cause of the life-denial of anyone. There is nothing impossible in this simple resolution, and then we will see how the world is becoming the Garden of Eden once again, and this time there might be no snake to tempt and trick us.

Sweet to Sour Story

I have been quite disturbed by the story of a former religious nun taking a Jesuit priest to the court, alleging illegitimate sex, leading to abortion! This news apparently had been entertaining the people of Tamil Nadu for quite some time, the former nun publicly washing her private linen, adding fuel to the fire, and the priest living in underground, in order not to be caught by the public eye, and the ever vigilant journalists and photographers. It would be quite unfair on my part to make any value judgment about this case, since what I know is perhaps just the tip of an iceberg, and a greater part of the truth may be buried for all eternity.

What had transpired the two of them to part ways is something which is unknown to most of us; what had prompted them to seek one of the most cruel forms of punishing in public is also something that most of us cannot think of. I am quite confident that whatever be the present situation, in the beginning there should have been genuine love for each other. Over the days and months that love could have led to greater deepening, ultimately leading to crossing the religious frontiers, to indulge in what is forbidden. I would not contest the idea that the priest and the former nun did not indulge in the most intimate form of human love, but would better leave it without debating about the authenticity of this fact.

One thing that I fail to understand in the entire drama of love between these two persons, where the sweet had turned into sour, within so few years, is my conviction that there should have been genuine love between these two at some time or other during their relationship over the past years. I cannot think that the former nun would have contemplated extorting a huge sum of money as compensation for what he had done to her; there are some people who propose this angle, but my heart says, during a genuine loving relationship this kind of ideas generally do not surface. In that case what had gone wrong in their relationship?

If the former nun had genuine love for the priest, how did she dare to go so far, demanding not only the expulsion of him from the religious congregation, but also a huge sum of money as compensation towards the damage caused to her. It is possible that there are other more dominant angles in the story – one being the caste issue, and another political, but my contention is this : if this lady had true love for him, she could only think of what is good for him; what would make him happy, even if she is disrobed of her religious status, and had to struggle in the unfamiliar world she is thrown into. Has her love for him evaporated then?

I feel sad for the priest, who could think that his love for her had become a public commodity, or worse still a yellow journalism. It is possible we might never come to know the different layers of their relationship, because it is only God who could fathom the hearts of people. While we await the legal procedures to take their own course, it is impossible to condemn anyone; who knows what had forced the former nun to resort to this extreme form of cruelty to the one who had loved her beyond all measure! It could be social or political pressures, or even psychological ones. I would like to remember both of them and place them before the Lord of all consolation that he might bring peace in the hearts of these two in a special way today!

Ignatian Insights 7: Consolation

Inigo was in touch with what was happening to himself, from the time of his convalescence at the castle of Loyola, after he was wounded at the battle of Pompalona. He could recognize two kinds of movements as he dreamed of the lady of high position, whom he desired to marry, and as he reflected about the life of Christ and of saints. In his ‘autobiography’ he states that some thoughts left him dry, while some others left him happy and peaceful. He was already sifting the movements of his heart, and that would become the foundation of his understanding on the movements of the spirit. But for now we shall concentrate on his understanding on consolation, the movement of the spirit which led him to inner peace and joy.

He goes on to explain this concept when he deals with Discernment of Spirits for Week I. The way he had given the title for this chapter in the Spiritual Exercises is quite interesting. He writes, ‘Rules to aid us toward perceiving and then understanding at least to some extent, the various motions which are caused in the soul: the good motions that they may be received, and the bad that they may be rejected’. The numbers that deal with consolation are 316, 323-24. First let us understand what he means by consolation.

By this kind of consolation I mean that which occurs when some interior motion is caused within the soul through which it comes to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord. As a result it can love no created thing on the face of the earth in itself, but only in the Creator of them all (SpEx 316:1). It is important that we realize that consolation is an “interior motion” and therefore it cannot be associated with external experiences, and the result is the soul being inflamed with the love of God, leading to love him alone! It is a spiritual experience, which cannot be roused by ourselves. God is the origin of all consolation.

Inigo observes yet one more vital aspect to mean consolation : “every increase in hope, faith and charity, and every interior joy which calls and attracts one toward heavenly things and to the salvation of one’s soul, by bringing it tranquillity and peace in its Creator and Lord” (SpEx 316:4). Therefore when we experience an increase in the evangelical virtues of faith, hope and charity, we know that we are experiencing consolation, and the fruit of this experience will be evident in the interior joy, attraction towards heavenly things, tranquillity and peace. It is not that only spiritual persons experience consolation; at some time or other every one of us go through this kind of experience, though we may not realize that this is consolation.

Every consolation may lead us to desolation, and therefore while experiencing consolation, one should prepare to face desolation (SpEx 323), and one should conduct oneself humbly (324). It is a wonderful feeling to experience consolation, but one should not forget that there is no perpetual consolation; everyone has to go through dark nights of the soul, desolation in the terminology of Inigo. He goes on to show the origin of consolation: without a preceding cause (SpEx 330), by means of a preceding cause acting for the progress of the soul (SpEx 331). Therefore Inigo invites us to examine if the consolation actually proceeds from God, or if it actually comes from the evil one.

Showers of Blessing

It is quite interesting to observe how it rains in some places and not in some other; a few minutes before we began our journey, the sky was dark, and we were sure it would pour quite heavily. Therefore we preponed our journey, so that we might not be caught by the rain. But some half an hour later, the rain was nowhere to be seen. As we got out of the city, we came across dry ground, and not a drop of water was there. Where has the rain gone, and why did it not rain here? I was asking myself. How is it nature is so insensitive to the suffering and pain of the people? We cannot force the rain to come down on a particular place and not another. Maybe that is a grace in disguise.

Fortunately rain is something that one cannot make claim over, and no one can hoard it in the godowns, storerooms and warehouses. Luckily rain cannot be bought and sold in the open market; it is not yet a commodity which can be auctioned, and handed over to the highest bidder. Is it not something beautiful that some of the most beautiful things on earth are beyond the reach and control of the human beings – the rain, the shine, the moonlight, the movement of the winds and pressures, the movement of the sun and the moon, the growth of plants, the inner dynamics of the human body and mind. Thank God, no one can put a copyright to the monsoon rains.

Though much of the natural resources had been at the disposal of humanity, God had not given control over these resources, which are far more significant and noteworthy, than the minerals, water, and the natural resources, such as the flora and fauna. I cannot imagine what the situation on earth would be if someone had a copyright over rain and the air we breathe, and we would have been paying through our nose to even to breathe and to get wet in the first rains of the season. Now we know that God is a wise person, who knew that if the human beings were to have control over these, they would have made a mess of them, and therefore he decided not to let them mess with his great gifts.

The many attempts of scientists and technicians to bring down artificial rain have met with utter failure; human beings have learned that there are at least a few things in the universe, where they do not have the last word, and have to turn to the great power. Sometimes it may appear that the poor peasants and farmers get far too little rain than the people who are responsible for desertification and deforestation; but if we look at the phenomenon carefully, we would realize that it is not the case always. There might be rare exceptions, but by and large, nature is far more generous to the poor than to those who can afford to go without it.

Rain has been one of the signs of God’s blessing from time immemorial, and even today simple people consider it a special blessing of God, and without his mercy, we may not have rain for months and even years. This is one of the prerogatives of God, and we can get it only from him, and there is no shortcut to receiving this gift. The first drops of rain are considered to contain the sweetness of the heavens, and they are believed to contain healing power – scientifically, the first rains contain minerals which have the capacity to bring healing and wholeness to persons. Today I pray for this rain to the Lord of the rains, to shower his blessings on the people who yearn for it.

Harnessing psychic energy

I believe every human person has a tiny bit of Godliness in him/her; I like the Greek notion of the human beings as ‘demi-god’ (tiny god), because that says that we have the qualities of God. This necessarily implies that to a certain extent we have the power that God has and exercises. The common sensical attributes of God as omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-capable), and omnipresent (present everywhere) can also be attributed to the human beings, though only in a limited way. It is my belief that the power that we inherit as “children of God” is ever-present and available in ourselves, and very seldom do we recognize it and tap it. If only we recognize the power that lies deep within ourselves, then the medical practitioners may become unemployed.

What do I mean by this? We have immense power and potentiality deep within us that there is no disease or infirmity that we cannot heal by ourselves. The psychic power (later in a different blog, I will come to talk about another power, the cosmic power) unfortunately, is a mine of precious resources, which lies unexplored, untapped. Now why do we not realize and recognize this psychic power deep within ourselves? One of the reasons which comes to my mind is that it requires certain disciplining of the mind-body-spirit, in order to recognize the depth, width and height of this mine. There had been individuals even in our own times who do wonderful works of healing and reconciling persons, using this psychic power. Over the next couple of blogs, I would like to explore ways of tapping the rich healing power that it is capable of.

It may be necessary that I define what I mean by psychic power! It is a power that every human person is endowed with, by the very fact one is a human person. We might find several justifications for the power we have been given, if we fall back on the creation narratives of the conventional religions or the creation myths of different tribes. As believers, we can easily understand that God created us in his own image and likeness, and after creating breathed his own spirit into us. Is it not a wonderful thing for God to do? He is sharing not only his image and likeness, but he is also sharing his life spirit; in other words, he is sharing with us his power and qualities with us. If we fall back on the Bible, there is no question that God shared his very self with us.

We often come across weak and fragile human persons at a spur of a moment achieving impossible and unimaginable works; for instance, it is said that if a baby is about to be run over a moving vehicle, and if the mother of the child were to notice it, she would be able to push the speeding vehicle and save the child. Now where does she get the strength to do this impossible feat? Of course this is the psychic power. Sometimes we wonder how certain persons, so simple and may even be just illiterate, can do some impossible wonders, and they may not be able to explain how they were able to do by themselves, but everyone would know that this is not possible under normal circumstances. These are the illustrations for the use of psychic power.

Now what can we do with this psychic power? There is nothing which we cannot do with the psychic power that we each one of us have; this is like the power which is convertible into any form we may want. You want to build self-confidence, the psychic power can help you; you want to find a suitable job for you or your partner, this can help; or you dream of a home for yourself and your family, but find it hard to find the means, then the psychic power can show you the way to attain your goal. It would be wrong to imagine that using the psychic power we can achieve material benefits instantly. We could look at it as a prescription for the diseases we suffer from. Just looking at the prescription is not going to cure the disease, we will have to purchase the medicine and take them, and that can bring healing. But that requires a special preparation of the body-mind-spirit.

Letter from Beyond

Dear friend, you might not have expected me to write to you, just three days after my departure from the world, and even before my mortal body is laid to rest! I know my relatives and friends who have heard about my sudden departure could not believe that I had left unannounced. And tomorrow I would be watching with much pleasure and merriment what are you people talk about me; I know much of the words addressed to me or about me would be saturated with honey that it might not be worth eating. But I just want to assure you that I have no more anger on you, or any of our companions; after some years, I am peaceful, and can rest without disturbance. I have no breathing problem, and can drink water as much as I want, without calculating how much I drink. I am in a world so very different, and am happy I have come here.

It is true I loved to live a little longer; all those who would hear that I was just 57 would think that I had a premature death, and could have accomplished quite a lot, were I to live some twenty more years, to say the least. I had a lot of dreams, and only a small portion of them have been fulfilled, and I only wished to bring to fruition some more of them, but when the angels of death stood at my doorstep, how could I say no to them. They told me that my time had come, and I could not give them any excuse. I began to grumble to the Creator that it was unfair to take me at this early age, and that I wanted to spend some more years here on earth. He smiled at me and said that he could not see me suffer, and so decided to take the bitter pill of taking me from the world to his bosom.

Here in this world, I lack nothing, neither the things that were forbidden me there on earth, or the things which I could only imagine, and there is the love of the angels, saints, and some of them have been known to me, and some others had known me for some time. What a pleasant surprise for me to meet the people I least expected to be there, and some other people whom I thought of meeting here, but they were not present. I had decided not to venture into any other place as of now, and slowly may venture into other locations where human beings are placed… I don’t know where the hell is, and where the purgatory is; and what is strange, I don’t know where I am; there is nothing which can make me feel where I am at present.

There are many who are shedding bitter tears for me, and tomorrow many would shed tears for me, and I am not such a noble and saintly person to repeat the words of the Master, Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. You would remember that the Master addressed the women of Jerusalem and told them this piece of advice; but would that matter to you? My race is run, and now I am waiting for the reward. If many of you have to cover the 800 meters race, I have been given just the 100 meters race to complete. It was so nice of the warden to make people run the race according to their capacities and talents. I am happy that I did what I could, given my own limitation and weaknesses. But now I am in a world of absolute contentment; I am just as I am, and realize the beauty of my creation before God.

What could you do for me? Some think that I need their prayers, their abstinence, sacrifices, so that I can be promoted from purgatory to the heavenly peace. I am also aware that I have to wait for all my sins to be washed away before I can enjoy eternal peace. But I remember that I had spent part of my last couple of years in anticipation of my purgatory, and I had even told the Master that I was completing my purgatory and purificatory days, and so if ever there is going to be any punishment for my past sins, it is not going to be too harsh. Now, you may ask me, what I can do for you! Believe me I am in a place from where I can just read your minds, and know things which are not even thought of by you. But fear not, I am not going to supervise or moderate you; it is your life that you should concentrate on; and there may come a time when you could recall to mind my life in the world, and be thankful to God for creating and letting me taste life on earth. I am twice blessed for entering into the world… I know being human is very much being divine! I will continue to write to you when time permits. Your friend.

Falsifying Falls (SS 03)

I cannot afford to fall in life, and if I do, then that would be the end of my honor, fame, the good name which I had been treasuring all these years, and here I see the Son of God falling to the ground with his Cross, and I take courage to look at his bruised face, he does not regret for falling, to face the shame and humiliation of falling on the ground. Has he become so immune or inhuman not to feel the pain and agony, not only physical, but more so the mental and psychological? Who wants to fall on life’s journey, and who does not blame the whole world for falling? But here is a very different scene, the Savior falling to the ground and yet there is not a word of complaint or blame-game or accusation of those who had condemned him to this situation.

Even as he carries the heavy burden of the Cross, pressing him down to the very earth he had sanctified over the past three years, and his frail body giving way, his spirit is still strong (I remember his golden words even as he walked to the Garden of Gethsemane : the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak!); it is the strong will power which propels him to fix his eyes on the Calvary, as he staggers step by step. But then he probably knew about the impending fall, and he does not take any extraordinary precaution not to fall; the weak body has very little strength and energy left, and he cannot hold himself anymore, and therefore allows himself to fall, and as he falls, I can see the Mother Earth spreading her palms to hold her child, he does not protest, he kisses the ground and rises again to walk further.

Is it not ironic to not only imagining but also witnessing the Son of God so weak and fragile that he falls to the ground because of the weight of the Cross? The world cannot accept fall, under whatever circumstance it be; to fall is to give into one’s follies and vices. One cannot afford to fall, leave alone lie down on the earth, unable to rise up. I frown upon anyone who has fallen, and they cannot be considered worthy citizens of this earth; they are lesser human beings, because of their fall due to yielding to their vices and sins. I have very little regard for those who have fallen “from grace”, and are trying to get back to their toes.

But the problem with me is that I cannot think of falling, and cannot accept even myself falling to the ground, either due to my own vices and sins, or because of the faults of others. If that be the case, then am I saner and more sacred than the man from Nazareth? If Jesus could allow himself to fall, what prevents me from accepting my own falls, even if that means due to the faults of others; after all, the fall is not everything; there is life after fall, and that is what the Savior reminds me of. When a friend of mine applies for the admission of his son or daughter, he approaches me to recommend his case to the concerned principal, so that his son or daughter is not deprived of a seat, “just in case” the child fails to fare well in the interview! I cannot afford to fail.

I have an incorrigible tendency to look down upon everyone who had fallen in life, I consider them not fit for life, while I conceal every time I fall, lest others think that I am too fragile and weak, which I am. I think of the numerous moments when I had fallen without knowing, and was not even aware that I had fallen, and there were helping hands coming from all corners to raise me up, and put me on the track. How wonderful it is to have people who do not show an accusing finger at me when I fall, but provide me with the much needed push to stand up and continue my walk! My greatest consolation is that these are people who would not run away the moment I fall to the ground, but stand by me to raise me when I fall. They are truly God-sent!

It is so easy for me to find fault with all those who had fallen in life, and are struggling to rise up and move forward, though the weight of the cross may be pressing upon them. I have all the resources to rise up, but the Savior had none to give that much needed helping hand; he had to look up to the Father, to gain the strength to rise up with the Cross. As I gaze into the eyes of the Lord, I remember my own falls, and the falls of all the people I am associated with; how many times have I been the cause of the fall of others, how often have I pushed people to fall to the ground, and was rejoicing at their fall? I feel sad for such moments!

You do not regret for falling to the ground, even as your already bruised body gives into more fresh blood oozing all over your frail body! You have no words of accusation or blame! I am no better than the bystanders who never stopped accusing you of what you were innocent of! Though I keep falling on life’s journey, I cannot bear people falling, even without their fault. Falls are part of life, and they may open up the floodgates of grace from your Spirit, because it is when I am weak that I can experience the power of your death and resurrection. I would like to extend my hand to raise up the many of my neighbors, because these are the very people who had been my strength and energy, when I fall to the ground. I kiss the ground sanctified by your fall, for this is the starting point of my little journey to my own Calvary!

Temple of the Spirit (1.c)

I place myself in the presence of the Lord, and take a few moments to “feel” his presence; the aura of the Lord’s presence surrounding me. I sit comfortably in a position which I feel at ease with, and now become conscious of my body, the different parts which make it. Let me pay attention to the different parts which are tensed, and I relax them. I call on the particular part and ask it to relax… my right shoulder, relax! I loosen the muscles, and can feel the entire body becoming light, almost weightless. When I feel comfortable, then I bring to my mind that this body which I behold here and now is not only a fragile God’s creation, but is also a temple of the Spirit; it is here that God deigns to dwell. Therefore it is holy and sacred!

God has sanctified my body by breathing into me his own life spirit, and the air I breathe in is but his breath… it is his breath which nourishes me. Let me therefore turn my attention to my breathing, the cool air entering into my body, filling my lungs and come out with the impurities, warm! Close my eyes and feel the breath, become conscious of the air entering in and getting out. I will also focus on the heaving of my chest, the gradual filling of my lungs, and how it feels on the nostrils. Let me stay with my breathing as long as I can, because it is the life spirit of God that has been given to me, and this spirit makes my body holy and sacred. God is not only a passive craftsman, but he has shared part of his Self by breathing into me.

I also become aware of the different ways how this body is made to indulge in things unholy, contrary to his divine plan; the eyes which see evil, the ears which listens to gossip, the mouth which curses and abuses others verbally, gluttony through which I eat more than I really need, hands through which I harm others, my sexual organs which are sometimes subjected to unholy acts of self gratification, my flesh, about which sometimes I am too fastidious… My body is by itself holy and sacred and it is only the conscious I who subject it to sinful tendencies. I shall move from the top considering how different parts of my body become vehicles of defaming the creator who made me.

The human body has immense potentiality, and today I would like to become conscious of it. I recall to mind some of the most outstanding works that I was able to do during the past few years, and the body had been always the vehicle through which I was able to carry out these noble, beautiful works. It is like Alladin’s magic lamp, you rub it and the genie appears, ‘Your wish, my command!’ The body is there always to do what I wish it to do. I receive this immense potentiality and creativity from the creator, the omnipotent God. Let me also remember some of the achievements people around me had made using their bodies. The human body is capable of achieving far more things than the best computers can.

If my body is the temple of the Spirit, the house where the Lord of the universe dwells, then it is only proper that I keep it neat and tidy. Today I pause for a moment to recall the moments when I had abused my body, or different parts of it! I remember the moments when I had not cared for this body sufficiently, failed to listen to what the hands or legs had to tell me when I forced them to the point of collapsing, or moments when I had forced to cover the natural beauty with artificial materials, when I had not given opportunity for nature to cure the commonplace ailments but rushed to artificial means of arresting them, when I had not given enough rest to my body, but made it work for days without sufficient rest… Let me for a while listen to my body, what is it telling me now!

Caring for the Treasure House

We often realize the worth of things and persons only in their absence. A father may be the worst kind of person and notorious drunkard, and the mother may curse him each day, why God is not calling him; but look at the same mother after the untimely death of the father. She would not be happy to have lost her husband; she would feel the pinch only when he is no more there. Probably all these years, she was able to look only at his drunkenness, and not any thing else. But after his death, she realizes that he was much more than a mere drunkard; at least sometimes, when he was sober, he used to be affectionate and loving towards her.

The same is also true of our human body; we do not realize what a treasure house we possess in our bodies; maybe a whole life will not be sufficient to understand the minute intricate mechanism which is operative in our bodies; the crisscrossing of veins, bones, flesh, and all of them perfectly linked to the mind, the central processing unit. When one of the body parts is dysfunctional, it affects the entire body, and that is what is so very obvious, when we look at one of our senior friends, who has spoiled both his kidneys, and is frantically on the look out for a donor, and a nursing home which will conduct the transplant.

Life is not the same when these kidneys have refused to filter the waste; he has to go for four agonising hours of dialysis, twice a week. When he returns after the dialysis, he is half dead; he has not much energy, and each day, as his body weight increases due to the accumulation of urine, he feels uncomfortable, and so cannot engage in any serious work. Life has come to a standstill for him, and therefore whenever there is a ray of hope for transplant, he gets excited, and sincerely hopes that something good will come out of this desire. When he neglected the care of his body for several years, he did not realize what could happen to him one day, and today he regrets for neglecting the care of his health.

It is illegal to even indirectly convince a person to donate one of his/her kidneys so that this friend of ours may live a fairly healthy life, for atleast another ten or fifteen years. It is also unethical, to imply that our friend's life is more worthwhile than the donor, even if it is a friend who has come forward to do this great favor. The moral and ethical questions are not easy to resolve, though it is easy to cut short the arguments on the ground that all lives are equal, and if one has destroyed one's kidneys due to neglect, it is for the one to reap the fruits of what he had done, but humanly speaking we cannot stop at that.

Most of us falter in life, not out of willful, deliberate action, but out of ignorance and carelessness. If only our friend had known for sure that if he did not care for his health, and take necessary precaution, he may lose his kidneys, probably he might not have landed at this stage. But could he be given yet another chance to taste and see what life has to offer to him? It is a big lesson for us, to realize the worth of each of the body parts, big or small, all of them have a specific role and function. Yesterday I saw a middleaged man, whose both feet have been amputated. Yet he looked quite happy, walking on his knees. He may feel envious of us, but do we sufficiently care for our feet?

The Divine Spark

The Greek philosophers had understood the essential nature of human beings in its most profound manner, when they said that every human person has a divine spark in him/her, and we cannot exclude anyone from this category. All of us are born with the divine face, but this face is marred in the world, as we come in touch with the notion of good and evil. Unfortunately it is only the human beings who have this sense of distinction between good and evil; look at the plants and animals, for them everyone is the same; there is no difference between friend and foe, they go beyond this marked distinction, and that is what makes them so happy and contended with life on earth. They have nothing to grumble about, nothing to complain about. All is well with them.

One of the most important role and function of religion is to help humanity recognize the divine spark in them, and attain it through a disciplined way. In very simplistic terms, all religions show us the way to recognize that we have the divine spark in us, and it is possible to regain it. And the Bhagavad Gita, one chapter of the epic poem the Mahabharata, shows us one simple way, which is possible for every person. In chapter 9 of the Gita, Lord Krishna teaches his disciple Arjuna the path to eternal friendship with the Lord. Answering the question who is dear to the Lord, Lord Krishna shows his disciple the path of equanimity, or to use an Ignatian term ‘indifference’.

We are so used to black and white distinction, that we cannot think of grey, the in-between, and strangely the Lord teaches Arjuna he has to be untouched by happiness and sadness, not desiring holy and unholy; the one who is the same to friends and foes, to cold and heat, such is dear to the Lord. Ultimately what matters is that the devotee is able to offer himself/herself to the Lord of the Universe, in whose hands is our destiny. But it is not easy to reach this stage, and it is next to impossible to find persons who have reached this stage. We could call the people who are close to this stage as saints and sages, and it may be possible to find one or two persons during one’s generation.

The spiritual sages of our nation have shown that the path to freedom and sanctity is not easy to reach; one has to renounce everything, including the desire to attain complete freedom and remain in perpetual ananda. When we seek this freedom, we realize that everything on earth is equally good and valid pathway to reach the divine in us. We realize that the divine spark is in all beings, both animate and inanimate, and the moment when we realize the divine even in our foes, those who do evil to us, and relate to them as if we are relating to the divine personality, then we can be sure that we are closer to reaching our destination.

It is true that true saints and sages would talk to the plants and animals, stones and rocks as if they had life, just as human beings. What is more surprising is that often they believed they received a positive response from these so-called inanimate and animate beings too, which is quite unintelligible to us mortals. It is possible that we do not take pains to learn the language of the birds and plants, stones and rocks; it might take just a life-long sadhana to really understand their language, and that is the language of divinity. For when we have mastered this language, everything around us becomes divine, and the whole world is charged with divinity. We become part of God-head, and we are gods!

Befriending Nature

Come, let’s be friends! That is the theme of the three day youth Assembly of the National Council of Churches in India, organized here in Kolkata, and I had a taste of the some 700 youth gathered from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and different parts of the country. The youth are initiated to befriend God, nature and humanity, and I thought it was a wonderful way of presenting the theme, nature sandwiched between God and humanity, and in fact that is how things came to be, if we take the Bible seriously, or if Charles Darwin were true. Science believes that humanity came much after the birth of the universe and nature, and today it is humanity which is on the warhead to destroy the universe! It is a matter of concern for all of us.

I am not much worried what these 700 odd youth, equal number of men and women, from all over the country and even beyond the borders would achieve in these few days they are together to think aloud. In fact, they may go home with tabula rasa, their minds as blank as they started this workshop, and there would be nothing to be surprised about it. But if every youth today begins to open his/her eyes to see the kind of world we have made, and the kind of world we are giving birth to, then things will be in a better shape when it is time for us to bid farewell to this universe. But I already feel we are unable to give a clean earth to our children, and we are fully responsible for the world as it is today.

In this regard, we should be doing something in black and white instead of talking too much about it. [In fact, I have begun to write about it after doing some work in this regard, and so my writing about it may be taken seriously]. If every human person, be s/he is in a village or city, begins to do just one small act in order to conserve and nurture the earth, the wounds we had inflicted on her will soon be healed, and we may then be able to see the morning sun rise, listen to the song of the bird at our doorstep, find friendly insects and butterflies entering into our drawing rooms freely, doves and parrots would visit us each day to claim their due share of ration!

We all want to do great things, which can change the situation in a huge way, and if we wait for such an opportunity, then we may be too late. Let me write what I had done in the past few days. When I had gone for the New Year celebrations to a village, my friends offered me four saplings of a particular variety of chili, which is known for its pungency. After bringing it home, I had prepared two flowerpots with enough mud, and planted the plants, two each in two pots, and have been pouring water each day. I had raised the pots, so that the sun’s rays may bathe them each day. And after pouring water, I go close to the plants and whisper something nice into their ears, and I believe they are so happy to hear my voice.

But yesterday as I was pouring water to the chili plants, it occurred to me that there is another flowerpot close-by with ‘useless’ grass growing in it beside a tall plant! I had been watering the chili plants and the two Aloe Vera plant and not to others. I thought for a while: I take care of the chili plants because after a few months they will yield chili which I may use in the cooking, but what will I do with the grass? Then, if the chili plants and the aloe vera have the right to live and get attention from me, does not the grass too have the right to live? Should it also not have the privilege of being talked to with love? Does the grass not as important and significant and even precious as any other so-called useful plants? How can I differentiate between the plants, when they all live together?

The Forced Farewell

My friend was almost in tears, when she saw the middleaged man in tears. It is not common to come across a middleaged man shedding bitter tears. He was shedding tears thinking of the plight of his daughter. She, the girl in her twenties, cared very little for the emotional outburst of her father, who but had to struggle from morning till evening to make both ends meet. But she cared less for the father, who could not even afford to provide two square meals for his family members. The plight of poverty-stricken family had found a safe haven for the daughter in a secure convent walls, hoping they may see their daughter have atleast three meals a day, and a worry-free life.

But the dreams of the parents were shortlived, when the young girl decided to quit the secure life, just because she found the "correction" of the sisters too harsh. She might have had an ego, that was too bloated, and she could not think of anyone correcting her. She would do what she wanted, and everyone will have to accept it as coming from God almighty. She found these corrections excruciatingly painful, and her pain was perhaps more than the pain of her hungry father, who was proud to think that her daughter was in a town, growing up speaking English. If he too was as adamant and unrelenting as his daughter, life would have been quite different for this girl.

Life for a young girl in this world is not a bed of roses, or a smooth sail; it has its own share of toils and troubles, especially if a girl is not brought up in a conventional mould. The dropouts and distracted will have to find ways to kill not only their time, but also people with whom they can build a world of their dreams. But who is there to help this girl to start life anew, with renewed vigor and strength? Surely not her father, who is too tired of life already in his forties. His pleading with his daughter could not soften the heart of the girl, and she was leaving pastures green, in search of dry deserts, to find an oasis!

The playful heart of this girl has not taught her a lesson, that the world is not as friendly and warm as it always looks; she had taught the mirages as real, and when she is thirsty and rushes towards the mirages in order to quench her thirst, that would be the moment of self-realization, and that would be the moment she may remember what her father meant for her; what it means to be under the safe and secure care of someone you can trust. When buffeted by the never-ending currents of life, she might look for a breathing space, where she may find someone to wipe her tears. It may be too late before she finds herself in such a situation.

No one on earth has the audacity to decide the fate of another human person; not even God has the power to do that. Each one decides his/her own fate, and that would determine what we make life of. One may tell me that the fruit of a particular tree is bitter or sour, but if I am determined to taste it for myself, who can help me? But unfortunately, in life there may not be second chances, and there may not be avenues to take a U-turn. But she will find her way one day, and remember with gratitude those men and women who had corrected her to mend her ways, for it is only by pruning can a tree reach its full maturity!

Art of Understanding

I really wonder how we human beings understand one another so well. I don’t know if there is any other creature on earth, who understand and communicate with one another as well as the humans. We depend largely on language to communicate, but language is not all. There are people who are able to communicate with others through non-verbal signs and gestures. The speech-impaired do communicate themselves, though their communication is very different from what most of the people would do.

But behind this seemingly simple process of understanding one another, there is a whole lot of things happening in and out of us. In order to understand a person, the receiver should be in a proper frame of mind, to receive the code which comes encoded in the form of a gesture or language, and it is the duty of the receiver to decode the message, and respond appropriately to show the receiver that the message has been properly received. Levi Strauss has extensively studied the way we communicate with one another… but that is all theory.

Why do we often experience a break in communication? Why do we face misunderstanding even with familiar people? In a communicative process, any disturbing factor is technically called a noise; this noise is not merely auditory, consisting of audio signals, but it has several layers, one important layer being the psychological. This simply means that in order to achieve a good level of communication, the speaker’s heart should be in sync (short for synchronization) with that of the receiver’s heart. When there is a mismatch, then the communication is bound to fail.

Thus it is within our power to direct the way communication takes place with me and within me; it is not too difficult to create artificial noise around me so that I do not hear the other person, and then can go to any extent to find excuses. No communication is hundred percent faultless. The perfect communication that can ever be possible is beyond the reach of human beings. Even an attempt to communicate to my own inner self is inadequate, and leaves a lot of gap, that I find it hard to reach a perfect equilibrium with one’s own self.

But how does God communicate to human beings, and what are the noises that we can identify? Even when God communicates himself/herself through the best medium possible, yet human mind may plant an artificial barrier between them and the message… No wonder, our communication with God, or the reverse, God’s communication with humanity is never a finished task, but a process that will go on till the end of time. Maybe at the end of time, we may sigh and say, Ah, now we understand what God was communicating to us!

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.

Glorying in God

Watching tit-bits of the mega Oscar award function at Kodak Theater in California, especially the Indian fraternity, showing of all their assets, as if this is the end of the world, I got a feeling that it was time for us to cool down, and even play our trumpets a little softer. Who knows when the trumpet may start blaring and annoying the people around. But in the scene full of color and sound, one little phrase by the Mozart of Madras caught my attention. Before showering encomium on his mother, A. R. Rahman dedicated the twin Oscar awards to God, and ended his short speech with a phrase he said in Tamil, "ella pugazhum iraivanukke". I just couldn't believe that a man of that stature will say this, 'all glory to God'. To attribute such an achievement to God is no mean gesture, it was beyond my imagination.

Was it a publicity stunt, as the public figures are wont to do often? I realized that it was not, because his mother said something in the similar tone, attributing the success of her son to the work of God. It was amazing to see how these simple people see God, and find a secure place in Him/Her. Granted that is young musician had to discontinue his studies to make a living with his musical talents, he had nothing to complain, or curse his fate; nor did he make a speech saying if he had received enough support, he would have won the Oscar sever years ago! One of the greatest and most enduring virtues of Islam is submission to the will of God, and Rahman was hinting at it.

He sounded more religious than most religious do. There is a mad rush to acknowledging all achievements to individual efforts, toil and sweat, and seldom do we come across people who would give due credit to a force that is beyond human comprehension. In this world that is soaked in disbelief and questioning, we often would like to keep God as a matter of personal conviction, and would only hesitate to bring Him/Her to our public space. I would like to think of the moments during this day, when I had brought even the word God at any moment of my public life; yes, I did, but that was in acknowledgment to the belief of a gentleman who came to see me. Is it possible for me to take my (some would be hesitant to claim God with a personal pronoun; but can't I have anything personal with God?) God?

We the Jesuits have as our motto, something what Rahman has publicly proclaimed, and most of our institutions have the first letters of this Latin phrase carved on the walls, printed in block letters on the books and notebooks : AMDG (ad majorem dei gloriam - for the greater glory of God)! Each of us Jesuits are called to do exactly what Rahman had done on the Red Carpet at Kodak Theater - to attribute all our successes, achievements to God, who is instrumental in all our activities, even our very existence. I would not venture to assess if we are able to do it always, and unconditionally; that is beyond the scope of this little reflection; but one thing is for sure: in the initial stages of the Society, all made conscious effort to bow their heads with humility before God, for making use of them as His/Her instrument.

It is a common belief that God carries us along wherever He/She goes, and is present at every thick and thin of life; is it not right then that we too take him along to our offices, work places, to our markets, tea stalls, and malls? I may not be able to publicly announce that I owe everything I have and have achieved to God (because there are more than I can believe who are there to frown at me if I were to say that), but it is possible for me to pause for a moment during the day, and whisper in His/Her ears, Thank you, God! This little gesture may not make us saints, but can for sure make us human, who can bend the knees before the mighty powers of God. If I seek his glory and honor, then I will have very little to pull up my collars and blow my trumpet, so that everyone on earth hears it!

Dreams that Matter

I have a dream, a song to sing... the song that had won the hearts of millions had also caught my attention. What ever the dreams meant to the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his companion Carl Jung, we know that it is the dreams that sustain our hope for a better tomorrow. But how often we come across people who have no dreams. They are half-dead; even while living, they are like somnambulists, sleep-walkers. But there is yet another category of people whose dreams are throttled at a very young age, or those whose dreams are stolen... those who wish to dream and are only too scared to, because they may not be able to bear the consequences, were their dreams come true. Even to dream of a better future is controlled by the whims and fancies of a select few, even in our own society.

If there is one malady that the world is going through today, it is the lack of dreams... we are so used to the kind of life that we are presented on a platter, that we are more than happy with the things around us, and want no more. A new form of complacency and mediocrity has set into the modern living. One of the greatest tragedies which could sound the deathknell of humanity surely is the lack of dreamers.... When I talk of dreamers, I don't necessarily think of great stalwarts as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. That was one kind of dreamers who were instrumental in transforming the face of the earth. But we need dreamers who would transform not necessarily the world around, but the small society I live in.

Dreamers are in fact role models that the present world is craving for; role models in all walks of life... hero/heroine worship had been so rampant in our country that we would take so seriously the reel-life heros and heroines, not realising that it was their profession and not way of life. On the other hand the society had been blind and deaf to the real heros and heroines, who had lived and died quietly, without making any noise, and their spirit may live in a handful of men and women whom they were able to touch within the short span of their lives. It is only those who have dream for the world, will be able to stand as a role model... sharing the dream of others is only one way of shaping the world, but it has to evolve from meeting of dreams, not merely adopting another's dream.

Unfortunately at no time of our education in schools and colleges are we taught to dream; what to dream, how to dream, when to dream... these are the questions that are not taken up during our growth period. I am surprised that there are no business schools which have begun courses in dreaming big; who knows it may be a reality very soon. But no one can deny the fact that those who fail to dream are stuck up on the midway, and may remain there all their lives. During my younger days, I used to see my elder brother writing on every notebooks with bold letters "THINK BIG"; but I think I had begun to think bigger than him, after about two scores years.

Dreaming big is nothing that takes us away from the reality we live in; rather it takes us close to the potentiality we are capable of. If I am a tree which can bear ten tonnes of fruits, I should be able to bear all those fruits, and should not be content with producing only five tonnes. That is what dreams do in our lives... pushing us inch by inch towards the full potentiality of what we truly are... And the glory of God is man/woman fully alive... Saint Augustine is credited to have said this, and in our own terms, we would rephrase it as, the glory of God is in human persons reaching their full potentiality. To put in spiritual terms, God is glorified when a human person reaches his/her full potentiality, for the maker knows that the purpose of making this person is greately fulfilled, and that can be the great joy both for the maker and the made.