My Dissonance with What God Said
Spiritual seekers, those who consciously seek to uncover one’s innate divinity, often have lonely journeys. The aspirant must travel the course — no Guru or realized Master can do the work for you. The only “tool” that the aspirant has is faith — faith that Someone is holding your hand and showing the way. That, at this moment, you are doing exactly what you are supposed to. And that life is unfolding just as it is meant to.
Aspirants are often caught in a whirlpool of confusion and doubts. After all, there is no tangible progress to be seen, no benchmarks one can measure against, and, more importantly, no promise that one lifetime is enough to fulfill one’s quest. The aspirant soon learns that nothing is in his / her hands and that everything is God’s Will. S/he might have the illusion of agency, but whatever happens is only because God wills it. And that is true of our own souls’ destinies.
We then seek direction from those who have seen God and experienced Truth. We worship the many forms of God that have walked on this land. We seek guidance from their teachings and try to make them our own. We consider their words as infallible, universal, and eternal. Their words must pass the test of time. And when one comes across an apparent conflict between the teaching and our understanding, one dismisses the dissonance to different references to place and time. One second guesses what the Master really meant. Or blames the translator and the hapless scribe who penned the Master’s thoughts.
But no, there can be no compromise because faith is absolute. What has been written is what God wanted to be written. There can be no ifs and buts. If I must accept the Master, then there can be no dissonance or a weakened understanding of any of His teachings.
“Real faith in God means to have faith in the words of God” — Radhanath Swami
I recently had such an encounter when my intellect instinctively rebelled against what the Master said. In my previous article, Sri Ramakrishna, an Introduction, I wrote about how, unbeknownst to me, the Master had quietly taken over as my primary Teacher. In the last few weeks, I had started reading the Gospel to root my intellect and quieten my mind. [The Master Himself was dismissive of mere reading without assimilating the contained wisdom].
“People…believe that knowledge is impossible without the study of books. They think that first comes the knowledge of books and then comes the knowledge of God
But if I want to know Jadu Mallick, must I first know the number of his houses and the amount of money he has in government securities? Do I really need all this information? Rather I should somehow enter his house, be it by flattering his gate-keepers or by disregarding their rough treatment, and talk to Jadu Mallick himself. Then, if I want to know about his wealth or possessions, I shall only have to ask him about them…First comes Rama, then His riches, that is, the Universe.”
[Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna]
I marveled at how His simple stories revealed profound wisdom. The Gospel gave me solace and often answered questions that were on my mind. I could always relate to and agree with what He said.
Dissonance Strikes Randomly
I was rummaging randomly through the book until I came upon this passage. The Master along with his devotees, was listening to a recitation of the novel Devi Choudhurani, written by the celebrated author Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. This remarkable novel was published in 1884, when women were primarily secluded and were in purdah, not showing their faces in public.
The novel’s main protagonist is Prafulla, a woman rejected by her husband’s family on her wedding day. One night, she runs away from home in search of her in-laws, neither knowing the address nor having any money. She meets a dacoit leader who adopts her and gives Prafulla an all-around education encompassing religion, literature, science, mathematics, and also fighting. Prafulla becomes Devi Choudhurani, the queen of dacoits, taking from oppressors to distribute to the needy. The complex story weaves in practical life lessons, spiritual inspiration, and thrilling tales of revolt against colonial rule. Despite her triumphant exploits, Prafulla lives like an ascetic still in love with her husband. After many twists and turns, Prafulla finally reunites with her husband.
M, the author of the Gospel recites from the novel:
“At last Devi Choudhurani met her husband. She showed him great devotion and said to him: ‘You are my God. I wanted to learn the worship of another God but I did not succeed. You have taken the place of all gods.’
The Master smiled and said, ‘I did not succeed.’ This is the dharma of a woman totally devoted to her husband. This also is a path.” (Emphasis mine). He continued, “This is not so bad; but it is called the dharma of chastity, the single-minded devotion of a wife to her husband.”
Huh, What?! Seriously?
My hackles rose. Surely, He could not endorse the idea that an intelligent and resourceful woman could seek God in her husband, especially the man who had rejected her earlier. I hadn’t read the novel, but from the little that I had read, the husband seemed weak-minded, easily cowering to his father’s wish that he must reject his wife. All my protestations against women being considered subservient to their husbands, with their primary responsibility being to support their husbands, rose.
I dismissed my objections. He was obviously stating an age-old truism especially relevant in India, where wives are called “Dharam (meaning virtue, duty, righteousness)-patni (meaning wife),” whereas the husband is just “Pati.” I told myself that what the Master said should be seen in the context of those times when women had a secondary status to men.
It was an uneasy truce.
Realization Dawns Unexpectedly
What is Spirituality all about? It is about diminishing the Ego, eliminating the Separateness from God, and finding Oneness. Teachers constantly tell us to see Divinity in others. “Do to others as you would have them do to you” is a universal theme across religions. A deeper contemplation of this teaching leads us to the central theme of Advaita Vedanta of One Consciousness, pervading the Universe and all its constituents as its very essence. The apparent individuality that we experience is God’s illusion (maya) for His play. All the spiritual exercises aspirants undertake are to pierce this illusion and allow the individual to experience the Ultimate Union with the Absolute.
However, it is difficult for ordinary men and women to follow this concept in everyday life. People need symbols, icons, and deities to anchor their faith. And even with this practice, God remains a remote Person, residing in His glorious heaven, somewhere “up there.” Someone to be worshipped, revered, and feared. How do we bring Him or Her closer to us? After all, He or She is our most intimate companion, always there within us, waiting to be called. The Master says that you only need to call Her with unbridled devotion, and She will appear in front of you. How do I invoke and strengthen the spirit of devotion and unconditional love so that He can no longer resist my call?
Is it perhaps easier to show devotion and unconditional love to the person closest to you? That’s why the Master says: “ This also is a path.” Prafulla had tried to realize God, but her heart was filled with love only for her husband. Her intellect understood God, but her devotion was to her husband.
Sri Ramakrishna continues, “If God can be worshipped through an image, why shouldn’t it be possible to worship Him through a living person? It is God Himself who sports in the world as men.” (Emphasis added).
Isn’t this the most fundamental truth? God Himself appears in front of us in multiple forms; we refuse to recognize Him because of our egos. We meet different people in our lifetimes to prepare us (albeit unconsciously) for our spiritual journeys. No encounter is random; no interaction is a coincidence. To accept another fellow human as a form of divinity is the biggest spiritual understanding that we can experience. Accepting not just in name or form but from the very core of our beings. This would mean that we simply accept the other person without reacting. Not just on the outside but also from within. Not a single cell in our body would bristle with suppressed anger, no ugly memories would be shoved into the realm of shadows lurking at the back of the mind, and no expectations would adorn our thoughts for tomorrow.
If we can do this, we will have progressed much on our life journeys.
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