Few years back in Bangalore, rats used to cut the wires of my car. After paying several visits and repairs at service centre, infuriated, one morning, I bought some rat poison and kept that inside the bonnet. By the very next day, the rats started dying.
It was a peculiar type of poison that would choke a rat’s breathing; they would come out to get air, but the poison would eventually stop their breathing and heart. The idea was appealing, since that will bring out the rats in air and kill, rather than let them die in some corner or under the bed or wardrobe to stink.
Issue got resolved. But there wasn't happiness thereafter. The sight of dying rats kept coming back. Later discussions with some of my friends gave various perspectives, and a bit of solace, for I kept looking for some kind of penance. Several years have gone by, but till today I haven't been able to outgrow that bad feeling, notwithstanding the righteousness of what I did.
I have learnt that something that doesn’t leave you with a good feeling is ‘bad’. On the other hand, something that leaves a good feeling is ‘good’. And if we do not resolve an issue in ‘good’ way, the hassle continues. This is not about whether our thought or action was justified or not, this is about realizing that there could be a ‘good’ or the better way, that we might have explored.
The point is, both the good and the bad invite reaction. If we haven’t chosen a ‘good’ way to solve the problem; it may not only continue the hassle but may also initiate a conflict, sooner or later, depending on when the receiver is able to recover and retaliate. Sometimes it triggers a chain of conflicts; and eventually people forget ‘who’ or ‘what’ started it. The two continue the struggle and in the end both suffer. This applies almost everywhere and to everyone, be at home, in office or the world outside. I guess whether we are able to solve an issue in ‘good’ way or not, defines our real strength.
Let us look at the tussle some societies and countries in the world are undergoing today. Behind every political unrest, economic crisis or so called holy wars, the root cause that comes out is a human weakness, the greed for power, place or pleasure. Our history is testimony of the fact that in the end there is no victor or victim. That leaves us with only one survival strategy; to invoke our strengths; to apply mass strengths against mass hysteria. If our weakness has started a conflict; it has to be one of our strengths that can stop or further avoid it; and that most often, is not our physical strength.
Trying to imagine what God must be thinking. Most of the religious books convey that the God is almighty and he upholds ‘good’. He gave us strength. He had to give us weaknesses too; else there was no meaning or relevance of strength. But we appear to have missed the point; instead of coming over weaknesses, we let ourselves go for the ‘bad’ or temporary solution, or come back to God to seek help. We pray for mercy if we’ve done something wrong; pray him for justice when we are wronged. Pray him when we are afraid, pray him when things aren’t working our way. God has become a matter of convenience, and that must be very frustrating to him.
Recently a friend told me, “I do not pray any God. I am a free thinker”.
Curious I did some reading on ‘free-thought’. It's astounding to see the number of people (particularly younger ones) adopting the ‘concept’ of free-thought and pansy, in various parts of the world. It is becoming clearer that if the God or religions continue to be misused, the next generation which is evidently smarter, wiser and abler than us, will simply disregard the concept of religion and God. And if we believe everything happens for a reason, this could very much be the God’s very own exit plan from our lives.
Guess the time has come when we all start taking 'good' decisions. If conflicts are inevitable, we must invoke our inner strengths to resolve them.
Let us teach our kids the essence of all religions. It will help them take the ‘good’ or right decisions when times come; and it may also avoid the unnecessary confusion, some people create, in the name of religion. It may also stop the dislike or disregard our younger generation is showing towards the God and religion.
Let us begin with our homes, let us try at least...for God’s sake ?
