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Saibaba’s death a couple
of days ago has brought thousands of people from India
and abroad to have his last darshan (glimpse) and
many of them were even crying that Baba’s divine soul
has left them forever. On the other hand rationalists
are challenging his miraculous powers once again and
maintaining that he was man like others and man being
mortal, he also died. Many are pointing out that his own
forecast that he will die at the age of 96 proved to be
wrong and he died at the age of 86.
It should not be very
surprising if thousands of people are flocking to his
funeral but what is indeed surprising is that the Prime
Minister of a secular country, along with Sonia Gandhi,
also went to pay his homage. Mrs. Gandhi is free to do
so as she does not hold any office in Government but
Shri Manmohan Singh holds the highest office and should
have refrained from going there. It is not clear whether
he went there in his personal capacity or as head of the
Government. If he went in his personal capacity who bore
his expenses and if he went as Prime Minister, according
to which protocol? The Prime Minister of a secular
country should not go for funeral of a divine
personality.
What I am going to write
here is not to condemn but to understand what is
happening in our so called post-industrial and
post-modern society? I always maintain that it is easier
to condemn but difficult to understand and unless we
understand we cannot bring about change. Thus
understanding an event is of primary importance.
Understanding functioning of godmen requires
understanding sociological, psychological and political
factors. Human behaviour is of very complex nature and
all these factors play important role. The entire
phenomenon cannot be explained with reference to ‘blind
faith’ alone as rationalists tend to do. Human interests
too, along with other factors, play an important role
and human interests constitute an important part of
human behaviour.
Thus, as against
rationalists, I believe, human behaviour as it is, needs
godmen very much even in 21st century (though
I myself do not approve of it). I am just trying to
explain the phenomenon as a social scientist. First of
all we should understand the structure of our society
and also education system it needs. Our society is
structurally unjust and is based on exploitation of some
by others. Thus the very nature of our society promotes
injustices, uncertainties and feeling of insecurity
Our education systems not
only promote it but also justify it. The poor and
exploited feels helpless and begins to believe in
destiny. Those who cannot face uncertainties either tend
to resort to irrational religious beliefs or even commit
suicide as many peasants in our country are doing. Also,
there are ways and ways of believing in religion. For
some with proper understanding religion is a source of
morality and ethics whereas for many others religion is
a source of superstitions.
It is in this sense that
Marx called religion an opium i.e. pain killer. Thus
religion helps the victims of our social system
(exploited and oppressed) to bear the pain of their
suffering. It gives them great solace and inner peace.
Only the sufferers know the value of this role of
religion. Many people flock to godmen and babas in
search of this inner solace. In our world which is full
of oppression, exploitation and corruption, religion has
become source of such peace and solace, in other words
it has become only ‘opium’
Religion, in fact, should
be a great source of inspiration to fight against what
is wrong and oppressive, it should create inner urge for
believer to achieve what is best in human beings and
fight against all that is beastly – anger, revenge, lust
and greed. In our own times Gandhi took religion in this
sense. Thus taken in this sense religion can inspire us
to combat all that is oppressive and exploitative and to
establish truth and justice in the world. If religion
does not inspire us to do this it is nothing more than
opium.
Babas and godmen are
required because of this nature of our society. Had
there been a society just and truthful we would not have
needed them. These Babas make this world livable for the
victims of justice and oppression in various ways. To
achieve for real success, success achieved in a just
way, not through fraud and cheating, is very difficult
and one has to work very hard indeed. And many of us do
not want to work hard and look for miracles as a short
cut.
A truly religious person
would not look for miracles but face all trivial of
life. These Babas try to win over our hearts and minds
by exploiting this weakness of ours for miracles. And
not only the victims but rich and powerful also look for
such miracles and hence they too flock to such Babas. It
is not easy for us to overcome this weakness and look
for miracles. Also, many people suffer from certain
diseases for which modern medicine has no easy cure and
so we tend to incline towards miracles and in this
category we have both weaker as well as powerful and
rich sections of our society.
Earlier at least in this
matter there were no classes i.e. there used to be one
saint or baba to whom all will go rich or poor. But now
in our country there are saints and babas who cater to
poor and those who cater to the rich and powerful. The
Sai was one among them. Through his miracles he would
produce golden rings and Seiko watches and usually the
rich would flock to him. Even powerful politicians need
babas for various reasons.
Earlier people would go to
these saints and babas for spiritual purposes but now
rich or poor, politicians and other professional, all go
to them for personal and mundane reasons. Hardly anyone
goes for any spiritual development. The modern world is
too complex for inner peace. Generally, and specially
the rich and powerful experience lot of tension and
insecurity and they need such external props which babas
readily provide.
Also, in this globalized
world a successful baba is supposed to have many foreign
(specially American) disciples and then argument would
go look even foreigners come to him and so he must be
really delivering baba. Generally these babas are not
very educated. They often happen to be semi-literate but
Rajnish, who at one time, was as popular as Sai Baba,
was intellectually accomplished. He also catered to
upper class professionals.
Rajnish attracted high end
professionals for certain reasons. He came into
existence in a society where industrialization was
taking place and professionals with high income were
proliferating. These professional needed lax moralities
with spiritual cover (what I call MATERIAL SPIRITUALISM)
and that is what Rajnish provided. Rajnish even believed
in free sex gratification rather than controlling it as
traditional saints did. Thus Rajnish became very popular
in these classes of people, especially among the
neo-rich. According to him one should enjoy pleasures of
life to accomplish ones spirituality. There was hardly
any from lower class among his clientele or with rural
background. Sai Baba, one must say had no such
pretensions of sophisticated philosophy, was illiterate
and even catered to the poor and rural folk.
Rajnish did not perform
miracles nor did he believe in them. His miracle was his
knowledge and his sophistry. Sai Baba needed ‘miracles’
(which was nothing but tricks and sleight of hand)
precisely because he was illiterate and could not
attract sophisticated clientele by philosophizing. He
was a simpleton with rural background. People flocked to
him not to listen to philosophical sermons or moral and
spiritual discourses but as a man of miracle and hence
‘divine ‘. He also claimed to be an avatara and
to carry conviction with people began to perform
miracles.
Once he succeeded he began
to attract more and more people and more people he
attracted, more he succeeded. Thus success has its own
dynamics – ‘nothing succeeds like success. But then he
had to meet challenges also. Kovvor, a rationalist from
Sri Lanka, and others challenged him to perform miracles
under controlled conditions. Kovvor even deposited one
lakh of rupees in the bank as a reward. He asked Sai
Baba to produce pumpkin instead of ring or watch (which
could be hidden under loose garment but pumpkin
obviously could not be).
Sai Baba failed to take
challenge but changed the track. His miracles had
already rewarded him and he could do without them now.
He began to render socials service, bringing water to
water starved areas, building schools and universities
and hospitals and this endeared him to another section
of people. Thousands really benefited from amongst the
poor. He also began to talk of love, love which conquers
hearts.
Also, modern day Babas are
turning into land mafias and develop megalomania for
huge empires. Sai is also reported to have left empire
worth some say 40,000 to 1 lakh crore. Building such
empires is, in fact beginning of failure of the mission
as now there will be fight for succession to control the
establishment. A real religious person is not builder of
empire but subvert it. Whosoever built empire failed in
spiritual sense and whosoever subverted established
empires became great.
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