Godmen of all hues, from our own N’nanda to the Vatican Pope seem to have come under a curse all at once. The fall of a religious institution, even if for dubious deeds, is a sad event. For, when it goes down, it takes with it something more precious: Faith.
Failure of faith means failure of life itself. For, despite pulls of a modern mind, our emotional edifices rest on an ubiquitous, unknown x-factor, that can be discerned only through faith. Religious heads are supposed to help us in that pursuit. Now, does that mean men of God are above law on the sole qualification of being franchisees of faith? Not certainly! So how do we reconcile ourselves to this conflict? Well, I am at a loss! Still let’s brood aloud, specifically, on the two attributes of godmen that have come under a cloud: Agency and Celibacy.
Not all of us are atheists who have this firm conviction that God is man’s creation. Nor are we all evolved souls who have realised the ultimate and seek neither ratification nor recognition. Rather, the bulk of humanity, caught in the crossroads and crossfires of life, resides in the grey area of ignorance and self-doubt. For them, an atheistic summary rejection of G is not an option; a complete understanding of the inscrutable too is a distant dream. They perforce have to place their faith, not just in the Almighty, but often on His ‘agents’ too, just in case.
The religious history of mankind is replete with the advent and actions of messiahs, prophets, preceptors, acharyas, gurus and sundry souls, who all in fact outnumber gods. While those from the past have the added aura of antiquity, the contemporary ones nevertheless shine in their own right and light.The messiah market is evergreen thanks to people’s yearning for a convenient outlet to outsource their troubles to. That said, the demand for deemed-gods who can decipher the divine is also owing to a craving in many for spiritual quests. And thanks to the Almighty’s addiction to anonymity, the faith in the unseen often attaches to the visible reps. The question naturally arises: Is there a need for an intermediary between man and God?
Any godman is more of man than god and is subject to all the failures, frailties and fallibilities of a human existence. Godliness is rarely a permanent state and comes in varying bouts, even in the holiest. A godman by his very biological nature is only a limited utility vehicle that can take you some distance, not all of it. Be it the Pope of Vatican vintage or the disparate gurus here, homo sapiens is too feeble or fickle an entity to be vested or trusted wholly with something as profound as the Supreme Power. If this is acknowledged, accepted and acted upon, faith will be failsafe, insulated from the unholy ways of some holymen.
Secure in this understanding, I do believe one needs the aid of a preceptor in one’s spiritual path. Bharath, particularly, is a land where there has been a thriving teaching tradition, a guru-sishya parampara that pervades all facets of learning, from arts to religion to secular subjects. If one needs constant coaching even for material sciences, matters meta-physical place higher mental demands on the aspirant. In a milieu dominated by scientific inquiry, such things have also to pass the hurdle of incredulity. Here’s where faith comes in and this faith cannot be materialised unless it is located in the person of the Guru. It is not that spiritual pursuits conflict with reason, as rationalists claim. Rather, faith and reason are the twin tracks on which the vehicle of learning proceeds. Anyway, the god-like reverence for gurus stems from their exalted status as dispensers of knowledge, wisdom, counsel on rituals, yogic teaching, and so on. But a good guru knows he is only the conduit, not the current itself. If the learner too has the clarity, the guru’s agency, as a teacher and guide, remains undiminished, and the guru does become an object of worship, almost equal to God. Even rationalists grant that to their mentors.
Celibacy is more delicate. I am unsure of its status in Islam. But in the Roman Catholic Church, celibacy is a cardinal rule, that cardinals, priests down to the lowly of the clergy routinely violate. The spate of pedophilia scandals that are currently shaking the very foundations of the Vatican have brought the celibacy question back to limelight. The Pope himself is in the dock for winking at the sinful penchant of lecherous priests close to him to make a grab for minors. The western media is going hammer and tongs and many have called for the interrogation of the pontiff himself. But despite the criticism and the obvious reluctance of priests to keep their libidos frocked in, the Vatican is firm on celebacy. It has declared that ‘pedophilia has nothing to do with the tradition of celibacy. In fact, most cases occur in families’. Amen!
If it is child-abuse in the holy west, (female)devotee-abuse is the issue here. Vishwamitra’s famous fling is scandalous lore. But I don’t think Bharath’s vedic, puranic or any of the local traditions advocate celibacy for acharyas, gurus or priests. It was only after mutts and monastic orders began to get established that celibacy for heads came into vogue. But even then there are many sampradhayas where grahasthas, married men, become acharyas of ashrams or mutts. Most Hindus trace their lineage, gothram, to ancient rishis, which is not possible had the rishis been celebate. Again, this must not be confused with Sanyas, which is a stage when one renounces worldly attachments. A person can opt for sanyas either after marriage (or because of it) or choose to be celibate to court sanyas. A guru need not be a sanyasi. But once a sanyasi, sexual abstinence is the rule. This is prescribed for undistracted, undiluted contemplation of the divine. But if abstinence itself becomes an intolerable distraction, which is natural, then the ‘sanyasi’ should go back to his wife or if celebate, get married.
Remaining in sanyas and getting bitten by the, er, bed bug is a perversion of self and followers’ faith. Gurus who claim to be sanyasis must also remember this. At the first hint of carnal affliction they must revert to secular attire and at least salvage their guru status. Hindu society has no problems with married gurus, even promiscuous ones, so long they dispense spiritual counsel and don’t claim to have renounced all things worldly. It is only the hypocritical Bachelors of (sleazy)Arts who cause problems.
Now, are we any wiser on how to deal with pedophilic priests and shady swamis? Well, we will know when the next one gets caught on candid camera!
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