27 October 2000, 859 words
It is my greatest goal in life to become enlightened. Previously, my greatest goal in life was to try and have sex with as many beautiful women as possible. Unfortunately, my success rate was such that I ended up with a lot of spare time on my hands. So I figured that if I couldn't get laid, I might as well get enlightened.
I have expended a lot of time and energy on this. I've read great literature, trying to understand the human heart. I have studied the theories of physics, trying to understand the nature of the universe. I've read books on geology, biology and evolution, trying to understand the planet we live on. I have read the great philosophers, trying to grasp the meaning of life. I've even read Playboy, because it has some really good articles.
It turns out, though, that one doesn't become enlightened through eye strain, but through ear strain. Hindu scholar and activist Ravi-ji says that long earlobes are a sign of an elevated soul and, as an expert on the world's oldest surviving religion, he presumably knows what he's talking about. So in order to become truly enlightened, it seems that all I have to do is wear really heavy earrings.
I may have to do earlobe stretching exercises as well, though, for it turns out that all my assumptions about enlightenment are wrong. For instance, I had always assumed that an enlightened person would eschew violence save in cases of self-defence and, even then, would have a response proportionate to the threat. Game theory and philosophical problems like the Prisoner's Dilemma had even given me a logical basis for this ethical belief. But logic is not enlightenment. In fact, even ethical principles are not necessarily enlightened ones.
According to Adi Shankara, whom Express columnist Indira Maharaj describes as the single most influential figure in the development of modern Hinduism, "When all resorts to peace fail, war becomes a necessary evil". In my unenlightened mind, that line that has been trotted out by every wanna-be dictator in history. But coming, as it does, from a world-renowned spiritual leader, it must be an enlightened argument which I am simply too retarded to follow.
My dim-witted belief has been that, if somebody criticizes your beliefs, the proper response is to criticize theirs in the same fashion. If they go further, one should have a proportional response. Not so.
"Hindus are now prepared to adopt violent measures to defend their religion against blasphemy," says Maha Sabha leader Sat Maharaj who, in a recent article defending Indian Hindus who took action to stop conversions, proudly wrote that "not even a dozen persons had been killed in...attacks on Christians."
Presumably, if 13 people had been killed, that would have been barbaric. But maybe not. The Bhagavadgita, which presumably is the word of God, assures us that, "One who is not motivated by false ego, whose intelligence is not confused, though he kills men in this world, does not kill, nor is he bound by his actions."
This no doubt was why Maha Sabha executive Rajnie Ramlakhan, writing about an Australian missionary and his eight- and ten-year-old sons who were burnt to death by Hindus in India, said that people had to understand how much stress the Hindus were under from people trying to convert them. One sees her point: the average Indian is probably too poor to buy Prozac.
But the really enlightened thing about Hinduism, as espoused by its spokespersons in Trinidad, is that you needn't obey the more difficult injunctions. I had, for instance, assumed that ahimsa (non-violence) was a basic tenet of Hinduism. The Bhagavadgita lists it as a quality created by God, as an attribute of godly men, and as a necessary act for the worship of God. Nonetheless, Sat Maharaj recently expunged it from the Bhagavadgita just by saying so.
Apparently, truly enlightened spokespersons can say that the Hindu scriptures don't say what they say. For instance, it is written in the Bhagavadgita that, "The four divisions of human society were created by Me...Priests, warriors, merchants and labourers are distinguished by qualities born of their own natures...It is better to engage in one's own occupation, even though one may perform it imperfectly, than to accept another's occupation and perform it perfectly". Yet Devant Parsuram Maharaj writes that Hinduism doesn't have caste divisions. He has even disobeyed the last injunction, by joining the Hindu Writers Forum instead of sticking to selling lottery tickets.
All this shows me that I face one major obstacle to my goal of enlightenment - to wit, my habit of thinking. But a column written by Ramlakhan for last year's Divali gives me hope that this is a habit I can kick. "Recent scientific research has uncovered the fact that the chemical make-up of the human brain and a stone is the same," she says.
So I'm sure that, if I hang out with these Hindu spokespersons long enough, it won't be long before I, too, am literally as dumb as dirt.
Copyright ©2000 Kevin Baldeosingh