(Sainiput)
On the basis of experience down the ages, the humankind has got divided into two schools of thought; ‘Astik’ (Theist) and ‘Nastik’ (Atheist). Astik, in an over whelming majority, are those who believe in God: Believers. Nastik, in a microscopic minority, are those who do not believe in God: Non-believers. While the Astik school of thought all over the planet earth has devised various religions consisting of a plethora of rituals, the Nastik School simply believes in materialism.
Of the two; Astik and Nastik, I am an ardent supporter of the later; Nastik. Thankfully the avid writings of Gurbux Singh Preetlari and his son Navtej Singh, Khushwant Singh, Mohinder Singh Walia, Darshan Singh Maini, Sasthi Brata, Dr. Hawkins, Prof. Yash Pal and the likes have shaped my perceptions. For that matter, I do not recognise the existence of God, heaven, hell, soul, salvation, and life before birth and after death, which are only based on blind faith, and cannot be perceived. All these, I feel are mere fabrications of the crafty priests of various religions aimed at self-aggrandizement, and patronised by the ruling classes known to assume the role of God-kings from time to time.
What I recognise is the existence of atoms comprising of Electrons, Protons and Neutrons, uniting to form distinct particles in bulk, which form four basic elements namely earth, fire, water and air, of which the whole material world is composed. All bodies are the combination of these four basic elements in different proportions and the so-called soul is the quality of consciousness in each living body. As such, there dose not exist any “invisible, unchangeable and immortal soul” as claimed by the Astik school of thought. The consciousness of each living body, resulting from the combination of the four basic elements, exists with body and perishes with body itself, as it is associated solely with the body. Death comes when the coordinated functioning of various body organs is interrupted due to old age, disease, injury, hunger, dehydration, suffocation, excessive heat or cold, fatigue etc. When a person dies, the wind in him stops to circulate, the earth relapses to the earth, and the fluid to the water, while the heat ceases to exist for want of body structure. That puts an end to his consciousness in the same manner as the sparkle vanishes from the lamp. Neither is there any other world, nor does the so-called soul fly away to the so-called hell or heaven, or to be born again. With this basic knowledge, I consider the so-called reincarnation theory as meaningless. The truth is that you live only once and after death you will never come back in any living form. But your seventy odd years on the planet earth will not be without opportunities, disguised of course as obstacles. A beautiful woman (a robust man if you are a woman) who beckons you to seduce, an unpaved road that calls you to trudge it, an offer of a career that beckons you to choose it! What is required on your part is only to shun your cocoon of lethargy and comfort and take the coming obstacles (read opportunities) head on, one by one, to live a full life.
Though I am no scientist, yet as do the scientists, I recognise the human body as a biological machine, which is a highly sophisticated and complex mechanism with unique functions and substructures. It is built up of bioelectrical devices, and is self-producing, self-sustaining, self-adjusting, self-heating and fully automatic. For the proper maintenance of the body machine, the system exercises a shrewd control over the energy part of the mechanism, since it is this energy created by the metabolic process that keeps the body machine working. It keeps a definite portion of energy in the form of reserve, which it does not spend under normal circumstances. It exercises an expert control on the expendable portion of energy also. It also sees that the reserve energy remains intact and the expendable portion is always recouped. To ensure these conditions and to avoid all possible means of the dissipation of the energy, the system employs various protective devices like fatigue, giddiness, swoon, sleep etc. as required, and transports itself from the conscious state (maximum activity state) to the unconscious state (minimum activity state). During these changeovers, which occur due to illness or under conditions of malnutrition or overwork, the non-vital organs, which are the main energy dissipaters in the system, are affected. First the eye then the voice organ, next the ear, next the sense of touch, then the muscles and so on. In the condition of prostration, the entire available energy is directed only towards the maintenance of vital organs (elementary canal, heart, lungs, brain) and in fighting out the disease. In abnormal condition of a disease when there is minimum production of energy and maximum drain on the reserve energy, there is a gradual running down of the system. In case, in this fight, the system is at the point of the defeat with germs overpowering it, then as a last resort the system wages a desperate last-ditch battle with the energy. It either pours out the reserve energy in one single dose or fights a regulated pitched battle under the unconscious state (coma). If the system collapses and the vital organs fail to function one by one, the manifestation of life stops in the body. But, without doubt I feel that the human body is in a state perpetually developing for the better. I also feel that with the passage of time the man’s prostrate gland will develop into two organs; one to control urine flow and the other as sexual intercourse facilitator. Likewise, the set of 32 human teeth will be replaced by two horseshoe-like structures to crush food, without the present day dental problems. Then, there will be no tissue as well, forming that tube-shaped sac called appendix attached without any use (other than the problematic appendicitis) to our large intestine. Also, I am aware that currently scientists are concentrating their efforts on the changes that take place within the cell during the aging process and trying to find out a suitable chemical that can delay the occurrence of these changes. Already a few such chemicals are under trial. This chemical, if and when found, would be able to add more fruitful years to our life span.
The human brain, I feel, has immense capability, of which only up to about 13% has become usable so far. I also feel that the capacity of our brain under use can be sizeably increased if it is used more often. Furthermore, like Prof. Yash Pal (our renowned scientist), I have a feeling that the habit of accepting a lot of things on faith, without inquiry, can produce a mindset, in which many processing capabilities of the brain first go to sleep and then are eliminated. The brain grows through use, and the honest spirit of questioning rather than simply learning by rote is vital exercise for the brain.
The valid ‘proof’ or ‘knowledge’ for me is only what can be perceived through our five senses; hear, smell, touch, see and taste. ‘Inference’ and ‘testimony’ recognised as means of ‘proof’ or ‘knowledge’ by the Astiks are full of flaws and hence not reliable. For that matter, I totally reject the theory that some one called God has created the world. Rather I consider the material world to be the fortuitous combination of the four elements, which do not require a creator (God) to fashion them into design. Where from did come the atoms evolving into the material world, is neither known to the Nastiks nor the Astiks.
Coming to the most practical aspect of my belief, I do not recognise the traditional theory of liberation from pain. So long as the living body exists, it cannot be free from pain, because pain is an antecedent of life. Liberation from pain can be attained only on death. Anyhow minimization of pain and maximization of pleasure is possible. More over, pleasure should not be rejected because of its complicity with pain, and one should not reject the pleasure of this life upon the false notion of life beyond death.
Life wise, I am plain pleasure-seeking. I believe that pleasure is the highest need of life. Further that, so long as the human being lives, he should try for maximum enjoyment and keep the pain at its minimum possible level. In other words, people should live happily as long as they exist. But any action rendering more pain than pleasure to oneself or others is entirely unacceptable. Also, the real goal of human life is in the journey of life and not in its destination. To live a full life, one should have a high goal and strive with a single-minded devotion to achieve the same. And the beauty of the goal is not in achieving it, but how one strives to achieve it. That is because some goals may not be fully achieved. Some jobs may not end in success. Some relationships may not be longer lasting. Some hopes may not be fulfilled. Some endeavours may not be completed. Some dreams may not be realised. But when one falls short of one’s goal, one can be proud of what one found along the way. One can always count on the wonderful things, which came into one’s life because one tried to do something.
Money for me is the strongest thing on earth and the ultimate means of enjoyment. I fully support Khushwant Singh when he says that ‘the more money you have the stronger you are. You can buy all the wine you want and the most beautiful women will come running to you. With money, you can bribe witnesses to lie on oath and pervert the course of justice. With money, you can bribe judges, lawyers, politicians, preachers of religion, journalists and anyone else worth bribing to say whatever you want them to say’. But by all standards, money is to be earned by fair means. Unfair and filthy means should not to be used at all to earn money, because, these are detrimental to oneself and more so to the society. Also, the use of filthy means to earn money leads to selfishness, which in turn militates against social discipline and reduces the person concerned to the status of animals.
As amply explained by columnists Vimla Patil & Yogesh Snehi, I believe that man-woman relationship in the societies world over actually stems from the ‘subject-object’ concept. Subject is the one who ‘does’ and the object is the one on whom it is ‘done’. That comes from the sex act, which places the woman at the receiving end: with an active role for man as ‘penetrator’ and the passive role for the woman as ‘penetrated’. Other examples of this concept are: Driver-driven, Seer-seen, Worker-workshop, Seed-earth. That status of the woman has resulted in social attitudes, which have made her the object of verbally abusive terminology. It has in fact so sexualised the woman, that the abuse may be targeting anyone, but it is the woman who is ‘penetrated’ and ‘objectified’ in the form of the victim’s daughter, sister or mother. As such, the dilemma of woman is that she is in chains everywhere. In the same context, the Indian society at its deepest core thinks that the man is born to rule and the woman to be ruled. Accordingly, the right or wrong actions of the man-dominated society have chalked out the life-graphs of women through ages in India. One may like it or not, women have all along been considered the ‘property’ of men. They have been kidnapped, punished, abandoned, left to live miserable lives as widows and even sold as slaves by all-powerful men. Things are not much different today. Women suffer the same humiliations even in modern India. Therefore, playing the role subservient to the male chauvinistic pig, the Indian women have come to be divided into five types. That is as per their forbearance, bent of mind and other personality traits, as crystallized by the actions and reactions of the man-dominated societies through ages. The five types have their clear-cut role models in Indian mythology and culture and all the five of them stand out as true-to-life icons of their respective types. These role models known as ‘Panchkanyas’ are; Sita, the wife of Rama; Draupadi, the wife of five Pandava brothers; Mandodari, the wife of Ravna; Ahilya, the wife of sage Gautama and Tara, the wife of the tyrant monkey-king Bali. All of them were legendry beauties and their lustre caused kings, sages and others to covet some of them. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharta describe the gigantic wars fought for two of them, Sita and Draupdi, whose beauty made Ravna and Duryodhana, lust after them. It appears that the life–graph of each of these legendry women is somehow replicated (like a jigsaw puzzle) in the lives of millions of Indian women even today. Suffice it to say, every Indian woman has a little or more of all the five types in her. As inheritors of the ‘Panchkanya’ concept through ages, Indian women are unique. Fittingly enough, the Indian tradition links each of the five types to five different elements; Earth, Fire, Water, Wind and Space. Accordingly, the present day Indian women have great affinity to each elemental woman by the way they look, feel or react to the world around them. Most Indian women tolerate and accept the worst kind of injustice like Sita (Earth) and remain steadfast in their duty and devotion to their husbands and families. Like Draupadi (Fire), they also hide storms of anguish, anger and revenge in their hearts. They believe that the curse of a virtuous, strong woman can ruin the most powerful of men. Like Mandodari (Water), they live a life of duality; with the turbulence of varied experiences on the surface, and a deep, silent core in their mind, where wisdom originates. They have an inherent gift of distinguishing between right and wrong. In a crisis, they know how to insist on doing what they consider right. Like Ahilya (Wind), they have a dormant power buried deep down in their psyches. They have the strength to move like the wind, and have the compassion to forgive wrongs done to them. Like Tara (Space), they seek a special lustre of their own. They are intelligent, compassionate and large-hearted with vastness of space. From this niche, they spread their compassion and tenderness.
I do not remember who said it, but also I believe that there are double standards in all aspects of life in India which one has to “live and face” from birth to death. The tragedy is that these double standards are heavily weighed against the woman as compared to man. In childhood, all aberrations on the part of a son are dismissed as mere ‘pranks of boys’ while daughters are always taught, rather pressurized, to be gentle and suave or so to say lady-like. As a result, the women down the ages have been missing the joys of life in their pursuit to become gentle and suave. The matter does not end here. While a husband indulging in infidelity is always welcomed back into the family fold, a woman who dares to take the pleasurable path is considered beyond redemption. So strange are the ways of society that woman's subjugation appears to be a conspiracy of men and in this vicious circle the artificial conditioning is passed from mother to the daughter from generation to generation. Looking back one finds that the double standards of morality for men and women were prescribed by Hindu religious texts and perpetuated by customs, conventions and traditions. For example, a man after the death of his wife was encouraged to remarry while a widow was not only not-allowed to remarry but was also expected, even forced, to commit ‘sati’. While a wife had to be physically ‘pure’ for her husband, the men were allowed to keep any number of wives and concubines. It so happened that the women's bodies became the repositories of men's honour and men had an obligation to one another to hand over their women 'pure' while giving their daughters away through marriage.
About love and sex, I agree with what the London based Pakistani Psychotherapist, Mrs. Shahrukh Hussain has to say in ‘The Virago Book Of Erotic Myths And Legends’: ‘Love is as essential to us as breathing and sexual fulfilment as vital to our sustenance and well-being as food. Yet a taboo came into being at some stage, unannounced and unexplained, which reduced this indispensable and intense energy to a vice’. Suffice it to say that sexual intercourse is actually a great stress reliever and a booster of emotional and physical energy. The hard fact is that sexual intimacy between consenting adults improves health by promoting necessary neurochemicals and hormones.
Anger, I learnt rather late, is one of the major risk factors for heart attack and paralytic stroke, because negative emotions cause narrowing of arteries supplying blood to heart and brain in the long run. According to some eminent cardiologists including Dr. K. K. Aggarwal, Executive Vice-President of Heart Care Foundation of India, ‘angry thoughts and the resultant negative emotions circulate and react with every cell in the body instructing the body to constrict the arteries, increase the pulse rate, and raise blood pressure. Repeated episodes of anger can lead to severe problems like heart attack and paralysis and sometimes even sudden death. Negative emotions like anger act as a slow poison, which kills the individual over a period. We should realise that during anger one loses the power of discrimination, so it has to be controlled much before it becomes full blown. The initial stage of the malaise is irritability and, therefore, its onset should be controlled at the earliest. It is also dangerous to run at a high speed while in a rage, as it alarms the whole nervous system, and chemicals such as adrenaline are released in large amounts in the body. Many exercises to control anger like observing silence for 20 to 30 minutes a day, speaking sweet and soft words and with every bout taking a walk or drinking cold water, doing ‘Pranayam’ and chanting of ‘Om’ for five to six minutes are suggested’.
History wise I am not the only one to propound what I have stated above. The people of my genre (Nastik) have existed through the ages. The problem is only their microscopic minority. The exponents of Astik School of thought being in majority have so organised the world that generations of people go on joining them without a murmur. So much so, despite Nastik philosophy being very old in India, no text is available on it. Finding mention in Budhist, Jain, ‘Samakhya’, and ‘Yoga’ sources, this philosophy also known as ‘Carvak’ or ‘Lokayata’ is preserved for us only in the writings, which tried to negate or criticise it.
Now something about the overwhelming Astik school of thought! There might be some good people among the Astiks, but, I have yet to find one. What I have found is that most of them follow double standards in day-to-day life, believing and deceiving their so-called God in every action. First, they are not unanimous on the forms of God and how he created the world. Then the plethora of religions and contradictory religious practices and rituals aimed at pleasing God. About various religions, less said the better. All the religions preach love for humanity, but most of their followers limit their love, only to their co-religionists. Not only that, there are sects and sub-sects within every religion, old and new, which remain in perpetual state of conflict with each other, often indulging in orgies of bloodshed. By the way, are we all not aware that religion is the single biggest cause of bloodshed in the whole world? Further down the line are the dubious means of existence in every society at individual, family, community, state, and country levels, where by hoodwinking and treachery, blatant and concealed, are in vogue. While the ruling classes all over the world justify their bad actions as politics or diplomacy, the common people call such actions as professionalism.
Concentrating on the Indian scene, we have no dearth of blatant double standards or dishonesty at all levels among the Astiks. There are our politicians swearing by the holy Constitution of India and building fortunes by misusing their Constitutional position. There are spineless bureaucrats dancing to the tunes of their political masters and making fast buck. There are reserve-category government officials getting promotions and other benefits over the heads of their general category colleagues and seniors, and doing little work. There are countless business people evading taxes, and industrialists defrauding the nation in various ways. There are judges selling ‘justice’ for a price. There are doctors of government hospitals making money through private practice. There are manufacturers of spurious drugs. There are teachers illegally giving home tuitions. There are others, who steal electricity, travel without ticket, and adulterate eatables and other consumables for easy money. There are those who print fake currency. There are those who smuggle and sell narcotics. There are those who throw garbage on public roads, parks and other open places causing stench and disease. There are those who break queue at hospital, railway station, bus stand, bank, post-office, billing office etc. There are those who encroach upon the roads and streets causing traffic bottlenecks. There are ‘halwaees’ weighing cardboard box along with ‘mithaee’. There are those who build places of worship to grab public lands for commercial use. There are those who steal money from donation boxes of religious places. There are ‘religious-minded’ government officials who misuse their official vehicles to visit places of worship. There are those who disturb others with religious functions of various kinds, day in and day out. A politician family hauled up for allegedly amassing unaccounted wealth cries ‘religion in danger’. A president of Shiromini Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee is accused of killing her daughter for marrying a boy of her choice. A chairman of Punjab Public Service Commission makes crores in jobs-for-money scam. A flying club boss at Patiala makes flying licences against illegal gratification. A ‘Baba’ running an orphanage gets arrested for ‘illegal sale’ of his dead wards’ eyes. Another ‘Baba’ misappropriates huge ‘Kaar Sewa’ funds for personal gains. An army Major stages fake encounter with Pakistani army in J&K for rewards. A politician stashes ill-gotten cash in the ‘pujaroom’ of his house. A 'DGP' is arrested for receiving illegal gratification in Maharashtra. A ‘Shankracharya’ is accused of murder. A chief Minister conspires to siphon away crores in a fodder scam. All confirmed Astiks!
A myth that Astiks blatantly propound to camouflage their misdeeds, is that everyone pays for his misdeeds. Examples are given of those who indulged in corruption and faced punishment later or suffered in some other way. But, there are countless others who go unpunished. ‘In fact’, in the words of Khushwant Singh, ‘there are many who do not suffer any pangs of guilt, remain in good health, eat well, live well, enjoy life and esteem of their fellow citizens, send their children to the best schools and colleges and see them fixed in plum jobs and married into rich families which ensure their future prospects’. Do all those bigwigs feel any guilt for squandering public money on weddings in their families? What justification do our politicians and bureaucrats have for amassing of wealth worth crores by misusing their official positions? By the way they all claim to be followers of this or that religious faith. Again in the words of Khushwant Singh, “they must be having explanations to have peace of mind, but to say that they would suffer for their sins, may be in their next lives as well, is just hoodwinking”.
Of the two; Astik and Nastik, I am an ardent supporter of the later; Nastik. Thankfully the avid writings of Gurbux Singh Preetlari and his son Navtej Singh, Khushwant Singh, Mohinder Singh Walia, Darshan Singh Maini, Sasthi Brata, Dr. Hawkins, Prof. Yash Pal and the likes have shaped my perceptions. For that matter, I do not recognise the existence of God, heaven, hell, soul, salvation, and life before birth and after death, which are only based on blind faith, and cannot be perceived. All these, I feel are mere fabrications of the crafty priests of various religions aimed at self-aggrandizement, and patronised by the ruling classes known to assume the role of God-kings from time to time.
What I recognise is the existence of atoms comprising of Electrons, Protons and Neutrons, uniting to form distinct particles in bulk, which form four basic elements namely earth, fire, water and air, of which the whole material world is composed. All bodies are the combination of these four basic elements in different proportions and the so-called soul is the quality of consciousness in each living body. As such, there dose not exist any “invisible, unchangeable and immortal soul” as claimed by the Astik school of thought. The consciousness of each living body, resulting from the combination of the four basic elements, exists with body and perishes with body itself, as it is associated solely with the body. Death comes when the coordinated functioning of various body organs is interrupted due to old age, disease, injury, hunger, dehydration, suffocation, excessive heat or cold, fatigue etc. When a person dies, the wind in him stops to circulate, the earth relapses to the earth, and the fluid to the water, while the heat ceases to exist for want of body structure. That puts an end to his consciousness in the same manner as the sparkle vanishes from the lamp. Neither is there any other world, nor does the so-called soul fly away to the so-called hell or heaven, or to be born again. With this basic knowledge, I consider the so-called reincarnation theory as meaningless. The truth is that you live only once and after death you will never come back in any living form. But your seventy odd years on the planet earth will not be without opportunities, disguised of course as obstacles. A beautiful woman (a robust man if you are a woman) who beckons you to seduce, an unpaved road that calls you to trudge it, an offer of a career that beckons you to choose it! What is required on your part is only to shun your cocoon of lethargy and comfort and take the coming obstacles (read opportunities) head on, one by one, to live a full life.
Though I am no scientist, yet as do the scientists, I recognise the human body as a biological machine, which is a highly sophisticated and complex mechanism with unique functions and substructures. It is built up of bioelectrical devices, and is self-producing, self-sustaining, self-adjusting, self-heating and fully automatic. For the proper maintenance of the body machine, the system exercises a shrewd control over the energy part of the mechanism, since it is this energy created by the metabolic process that keeps the body machine working. It keeps a definite portion of energy in the form of reserve, which it does not spend under normal circumstances. It exercises an expert control on the expendable portion of energy also. It also sees that the reserve energy remains intact and the expendable portion is always recouped. To ensure these conditions and to avoid all possible means of the dissipation of the energy, the system employs various protective devices like fatigue, giddiness, swoon, sleep etc. as required, and transports itself from the conscious state (maximum activity state) to the unconscious state (minimum activity state). During these changeovers, which occur due to illness or under conditions of malnutrition or overwork, the non-vital organs, which are the main energy dissipaters in the system, are affected. First the eye then the voice organ, next the ear, next the sense of touch, then the muscles and so on. In the condition of prostration, the entire available energy is directed only towards the maintenance of vital organs (elementary canal, heart, lungs, brain) and in fighting out the disease. In abnormal condition of a disease when there is minimum production of energy and maximum drain on the reserve energy, there is a gradual running down of the system. In case, in this fight, the system is at the point of the defeat with germs overpowering it, then as a last resort the system wages a desperate last-ditch battle with the energy. It either pours out the reserve energy in one single dose or fights a regulated pitched battle under the unconscious state (coma). If the system collapses and the vital organs fail to function one by one, the manifestation of life stops in the body. But, without doubt I feel that the human body is in a state perpetually developing for the better. I also feel that with the passage of time the man’s prostrate gland will develop into two organs; one to control urine flow and the other as sexual intercourse facilitator. Likewise, the set of 32 human teeth will be replaced by two horseshoe-like structures to crush food, without the present day dental problems. Then, there will be no tissue as well, forming that tube-shaped sac called appendix attached without any use (other than the problematic appendicitis) to our large intestine. Also, I am aware that currently scientists are concentrating their efforts on the changes that take place within the cell during the aging process and trying to find out a suitable chemical that can delay the occurrence of these changes. Already a few such chemicals are under trial. This chemical, if and when found, would be able to add more fruitful years to our life span.
The human brain, I feel, has immense capability, of which only up to about 13% has become usable so far. I also feel that the capacity of our brain under use can be sizeably increased if it is used more often. Furthermore, like Prof. Yash Pal (our renowned scientist), I have a feeling that the habit of accepting a lot of things on faith, without inquiry, can produce a mindset, in which many processing capabilities of the brain first go to sleep and then are eliminated. The brain grows through use, and the honest spirit of questioning rather than simply learning by rote is vital exercise for the brain.
The valid ‘proof’ or ‘knowledge’ for me is only what can be perceived through our five senses; hear, smell, touch, see and taste. ‘Inference’ and ‘testimony’ recognised as means of ‘proof’ or ‘knowledge’ by the Astiks are full of flaws and hence not reliable. For that matter, I totally reject the theory that some one called God has created the world. Rather I consider the material world to be the fortuitous combination of the four elements, which do not require a creator (God) to fashion them into design. Where from did come the atoms evolving into the material world, is neither known to the Nastiks nor the Astiks.
Coming to the most practical aspect of my belief, I do not recognise the traditional theory of liberation from pain. So long as the living body exists, it cannot be free from pain, because pain is an antecedent of life. Liberation from pain can be attained only on death. Anyhow minimization of pain and maximization of pleasure is possible. More over, pleasure should not be rejected because of its complicity with pain, and one should not reject the pleasure of this life upon the false notion of life beyond death.
Life wise, I am plain pleasure-seeking. I believe that pleasure is the highest need of life. Further that, so long as the human being lives, he should try for maximum enjoyment and keep the pain at its minimum possible level. In other words, people should live happily as long as they exist. But any action rendering more pain than pleasure to oneself or others is entirely unacceptable. Also, the real goal of human life is in the journey of life and not in its destination. To live a full life, one should have a high goal and strive with a single-minded devotion to achieve the same. And the beauty of the goal is not in achieving it, but how one strives to achieve it. That is because some goals may not be fully achieved. Some jobs may not end in success. Some relationships may not be longer lasting. Some hopes may not be fulfilled. Some endeavours may not be completed. Some dreams may not be realised. But when one falls short of one’s goal, one can be proud of what one found along the way. One can always count on the wonderful things, which came into one’s life because one tried to do something.
Money for me is the strongest thing on earth and the ultimate means of enjoyment. I fully support Khushwant Singh when he says that ‘the more money you have the stronger you are. You can buy all the wine you want and the most beautiful women will come running to you. With money, you can bribe witnesses to lie on oath and pervert the course of justice. With money, you can bribe judges, lawyers, politicians, preachers of religion, journalists and anyone else worth bribing to say whatever you want them to say’. But by all standards, money is to be earned by fair means. Unfair and filthy means should not to be used at all to earn money, because, these are detrimental to oneself and more so to the society. Also, the use of filthy means to earn money leads to selfishness, which in turn militates against social discipline and reduces the person concerned to the status of animals.
As amply explained by columnists Vimla Patil & Yogesh Snehi, I believe that man-woman relationship in the societies world over actually stems from the ‘subject-object’ concept. Subject is the one who ‘does’ and the object is the one on whom it is ‘done’. That comes from the sex act, which places the woman at the receiving end: with an active role for man as ‘penetrator’ and the passive role for the woman as ‘penetrated’. Other examples of this concept are: Driver-driven, Seer-seen, Worker-workshop, Seed-earth. That status of the woman has resulted in social attitudes, which have made her the object of verbally abusive terminology. It has in fact so sexualised the woman, that the abuse may be targeting anyone, but it is the woman who is ‘penetrated’ and ‘objectified’ in the form of the victim’s daughter, sister or mother. As such, the dilemma of woman is that she is in chains everywhere. In the same context, the Indian society at its deepest core thinks that the man is born to rule and the woman to be ruled. Accordingly, the right or wrong actions of the man-dominated society have chalked out the life-graphs of women through ages in India. One may like it or not, women have all along been considered the ‘property’ of men. They have been kidnapped, punished, abandoned, left to live miserable lives as widows and even sold as slaves by all-powerful men. Things are not much different today. Women suffer the same humiliations even in modern India. Therefore, playing the role subservient to the male chauvinistic pig, the Indian women have come to be divided into five types. That is as per their forbearance, bent of mind and other personality traits, as crystallized by the actions and reactions of the man-dominated societies through ages. The five types have their clear-cut role models in Indian mythology and culture and all the five of them stand out as true-to-life icons of their respective types. These role models known as ‘Panchkanyas’ are; Sita, the wife of Rama; Draupadi, the wife of five Pandava brothers; Mandodari, the wife of Ravna; Ahilya, the wife of sage Gautama and Tara, the wife of the tyrant monkey-king Bali. All of them were legendry beauties and their lustre caused kings, sages and others to covet some of them. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharta describe the gigantic wars fought for two of them, Sita and Draupdi, whose beauty made Ravna and Duryodhana, lust after them. It appears that the life–graph of each of these legendry women is somehow replicated (like a jigsaw puzzle) in the lives of millions of Indian women even today. Suffice it to say, every Indian woman has a little or more of all the five types in her. As inheritors of the ‘Panchkanya’ concept through ages, Indian women are unique. Fittingly enough, the Indian tradition links each of the five types to five different elements; Earth, Fire, Water, Wind and Space. Accordingly, the present day Indian women have great affinity to each elemental woman by the way they look, feel or react to the world around them. Most Indian women tolerate and accept the worst kind of injustice like Sita (Earth) and remain steadfast in their duty and devotion to their husbands and families. Like Draupadi (Fire), they also hide storms of anguish, anger and revenge in their hearts. They believe that the curse of a virtuous, strong woman can ruin the most powerful of men. Like Mandodari (Water), they live a life of duality; with the turbulence of varied experiences on the surface, and a deep, silent core in their mind, where wisdom originates. They have an inherent gift of distinguishing between right and wrong. In a crisis, they know how to insist on doing what they consider right. Like Ahilya (Wind), they have a dormant power buried deep down in their psyches. They have the strength to move like the wind, and have the compassion to forgive wrongs done to them. Like Tara (Space), they seek a special lustre of their own. They are intelligent, compassionate and large-hearted with vastness of space. From this niche, they spread their compassion and tenderness.
I do not remember who said it, but also I believe that there are double standards in all aspects of life in India which one has to “live and face” from birth to death. The tragedy is that these double standards are heavily weighed against the woman as compared to man. In childhood, all aberrations on the part of a son are dismissed as mere ‘pranks of boys’ while daughters are always taught, rather pressurized, to be gentle and suave or so to say lady-like. As a result, the women down the ages have been missing the joys of life in their pursuit to become gentle and suave. The matter does not end here. While a husband indulging in infidelity is always welcomed back into the family fold, a woman who dares to take the pleasurable path is considered beyond redemption. So strange are the ways of society that woman's subjugation appears to be a conspiracy of men and in this vicious circle the artificial conditioning is passed from mother to the daughter from generation to generation. Looking back one finds that the double standards of morality for men and women were prescribed by Hindu religious texts and perpetuated by customs, conventions and traditions. For example, a man after the death of his wife was encouraged to remarry while a widow was not only not-allowed to remarry but was also expected, even forced, to commit ‘sati’. While a wife had to be physically ‘pure’ for her husband, the men were allowed to keep any number of wives and concubines. It so happened that the women's bodies became the repositories of men's honour and men had an obligation to one another to hand over their women 'pure' while giving their daughters away through marriage.
About love and sex, I agree with what the London based Pakistani Psychotherapist, Mrs. Shahrukh Hussain has to say in ‘The Virago Book Of Erotic Myths And Legends’: ‘Love is as essential to us as breathing and sexual fulfilment as vital to our sustenance and well-being as food. Yet a taboo came into being at some stage, unannounced and unexplained, which reduced this indispensable and intense energy to a vice’. Suffice it to say that sexual intercourse is actually a great stress reliever and a booster of emotional and physical energy. The hard fact is that sexual intimacy between consenting adults improves health by promoting necessary neurochemicals and hormones.
Anger, I learnt rather late, is one of the major risk factors for heart attack and paralytic stroke, because negative emotions cause narrowing of arteries supplying blood to heart and brain in the long run. According to some eminent cardiologists including Dr. K. K. Aggarwal, Executive Vice-President of Heart Care Foundation of India, ‘angry thoughts and the resultant negative emotions circulate and react with every cell in the body instructing the body to constrict the arteries, increase the pulse rate, and raise blood pressure. Repeated episodes of anger can lead to severe problems like heart attack and paralysis and sometimes even sudden death. Negative emotions like anger act as a slow poison, which kills the individual over a period. We should realise that during anger one loses the power of discrimination, so it has to be controlled much before it becomes full blown. The initial stage of the malaise is irritability and, therefore, its onset should be controlled at the earliest. It is also dangerous to run at a high speed while in a rage, as it alarms the whole nervous system, and chemicals such as adrenaline are released in large amounts in the body. Many exercises to control anger like observing silence for 20 to 30 minutes a day, speaking sweet and soft words and with every bout taking a walk or drinking cold water, doing ‘Pranayam’ and chanting of ‘Om’ for five to six minutes are suggested’.
History wise I am not the only one to propound what I have stated above. The people of my genre (Nastik) have existed through the ages. The problem is only their microscopic minority. The exponents of Astik School of thought being in majority have so organised the world that generations of people go on joining them without a murmur. So much so, despite Nastik philosophy being very old in India, no text is available on it. Finding mention in Budhist, Jain, ‘Samakhya’, and ‘Yoga’ sources, this philosophy also known as ‘Carvak’ or ‘Lokayata’ is preserved for us only in the writings, which tried to negate or criticise it.
Now something about the overwhelming Astik school of thought! There might be some good people among the Astiks, but, I have yet to find one. What I have found is that most of them follow double standards in day-to-day life, believing and deceiving their so-called God in every action. First, they are not unanimous on the forms of God and how he created the world. Then the plethora of religions and contradictory religious practices and rituals aimed at pleasing God. About various religions, less said the better. All the religions preach love for humanity, but most of their followers limit their love, only to their co-religionists. Not only that, there are sects and sub-sects within every religion, old and new, which remain in perpetual state of conflict with each other, often indulging in orgies of bloodshed. By the way, are we all not aware that religion is the single biggest cause of bloodshed in the whole world? Further down the line are the dubious means of existence in every society at individual, family, community, state, and country levels, where by hoodwinking and treachery, blatant and concealed, are in vogue. While the ruling classes all over the world justify their bad actions as politics or diplomacy, the common people call such actions as professionalism.
Concentrating on the Indian scene, we have no dearth of blatant double standards or dishonesty at all levels among the Astiks. There are our politicians swearing by the holy Constitution of India and building fortunes by misusing their Constitutional position. There are spineless bureaucrats dancing to the tunes of their political masters and making fast buck. There are reserve-category government officials getting promotions and other benefits over the heads of their general category colleagues and seniors, and doing little work. There are countless business people evading taxes, and industrialists defrauding the nation in various ways. There are judges selling ‘justice’ for a price. There are doctors of government hospitals making money through private practice. There are manufacturers of spurious drugs. There are teachers illegally giving home tuitions. There are others, who steal electricity, travel without ticket, and adulterate eatables and other consumables for easy money. There are those who print fake currency. There are those who smuggle and sell narcotics. There are those who throw garbage on public roads, parks and other open places causing stench and disease. There are those who break queue at hospital, railway station, bus stand, bank, post-office, billing office etc. There are those who encroach upon the roads and streets causing traffic bottlenecks. There are ‘halwaees’ weighing cardboard box along with ‘mithaee’. There are those who build places of worship to grab public lands for commercial use. There are those who steal money from donation boxes of religious places. There are ‘religious-minded’ government officials who misuse their official vehicles to visit places of worship. There are those who disturb others with religious functions of various kinds, day in and day out. A politician family hauled up for allegedly amassing unaccounted wealth cries ‘religion in danger’. A president of Shiromini Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee is accused of killing her daughter for marrying a boy of her choice. A chairman of Punjab Public Service Commission makes crores in jobs-for-money scam. A flying club boss at Patiala makes flying licences against illegal gratification. A ‘Baba’ running an orphanage gets arrested for ‘illegal sale’ of his dead wards’ eyes. Another ‘Baba’ misappropriates huge ‘Kaar Sewa’ funds for personal gains. An army Major stages fake encounter with Pakistani army in J&K for rewards. A politician stashes ill-gotten cash in the ‘pujaroom’ of his house. A 'DGP' is arrested for receiving illegal gratification in Maharashtra. A ‘Shankracharya’ is accused of murder. A chief Minister conspires to siphon away crores in a fodder scam. All confirmed Astiks!
A myth that Astiks blatantly propound to camouflage their misdeeds, is that everyone pays for his misdeeds. Examples are given of those who indulged in corruption and faced punishment later or suffered in some other way. But, there are countless others who go unpunished. ‘In fact’, in the words of Khushwant Singh, ‘there are many who do not suffer any pangs of guilt, remain in good health, eat well, live well, enjoy life and esteem of their fellow citizens, send their children to the best schools and colleges and see them fixed in plum jobs and married into rich families which ensure their future prospects’. Do all those bigwigs feel any guilt for squandering public money on weddings in their families? What justification do our politicians and bureaucrats have for amassing of wealth worth crores by misusing their official positions? By the way they all claim to be followers of this or that religious faith. Again in the words of Khushwant Singh, “they must be having explanations to have peace of mind, but to say that they would suffer for their sins, may be in their next lives as well, is just hoodwinking”.
*******All Rights Reserved*******
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Invitation:- Guys and gals of any age having similar bent of mind are invited for friendship/chat please.
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