06-10-2007, 05:56 AM
Kushwant Singh in Deccan Chronicle, 10 June 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A matter of life and death
By Khushwant Singh
Having taught comparative religions in some foreign universities I am acquainted with the scriptures of most major religions of the world, be it superficially I hoped to find answers to three questions: Where have we come from? Why are we here? What happens to us after we die? I did not find them in any sacred text. What answers there are fall in two broad categories: one which holds that an Almighty Power created us; He gave us a life-chance to prove ourselves; and on death we return to God to be rewarded or punished for our conduct in life.
The second group of religions believe in a continuous cycle of births, deaths and rebirths with our destinies dependent on how we led our lives. I found both sets of answers unacceptable to me, as neither adduce any concrete evidence in support of their contentions.
A friend in Mumbai sent me three books on religion by A. Parthasarathy who has a formidable reputation as a scholar of Hinduism. I could well understand that as I read his best known work The Eternities: Vedanta Treatise â first published in 1978, now in its 13th edition. He writes lucid prose with apt quotations, poetry and anecdotes. It is as seductive an exposé of Vedanta as I have read. But when it came to answering the three questions which no one has yet answered, he gives traditional explanations. Why are we so different from each other? Most of us would answer because of genes inherited from our parents and our upbringing. Parthasarathy discretely attributes them to the "past" when he means exactly what most of us refer to as our previous lives before this one. I do not dispute his views about what we should do in our lives. He says it should be devoted to self realisation through meditation. He censors drinking as "taking intoxicants" and indulging the senses as improper.
For me, and the vast majority of my friends, drinking is different from addiction to alcohol or drunkenness and is a pleasant pastime. So is indulging in our senses given to us by nature. About life after death, he juggles with words which leave the reader utterly confused because he hesitates to say that he believes in reincarnation because his scriptures say so. Even the Dalai Lama whose leadership of his sect of Buddhism is based on belief in reincarnation denies its validity and has set up a council of elder monks to elect his successor.
Parthasarathy constantly talks of bliss of self-realisation. I have not met him but a lot of self-proclaimed teachers of religion who claim to have achieved sublime bliss. All of them have smug smiles of satisfaction on their faces, but I have never come across one who could laugh heartily. As for bamboozling readers with words, I quote just one example, a translation of a shloka, which runs: "Om. That is infinite. There is infinite. Infinite has come out of infinite. Take away infinite from infinite, what remains is infinite."
Can you decipher what it means? Why is it so hard to be truthful, and admit I do not know?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
how can he talk about Hinduism?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A matter of life and death
By Khushwant Singh
Having taught comparative religions in some foreign universities I am acquainted with the scriptures of most major religions of the world, be it superficially I hoped to find answers to three questions: Where have we come from? Why are we here? What happens to us after we die? I did not find them in any sacred text. What answers there are fall in two broad categories: one which holds that an Almighty Power created us; He gave us a life-chance to prove ourselves; and on death we return to God to be rewarded or punished for our conduct in life.
The second group of religions believe in a continuous cycle of births, deaths and rebirths with our destinies dependent on how we led our lives. I found both sets of answers unacceptable to me, as neither adduce any concrete evidence in support of their contentions.
A friend in Mumbai sent me three books on religion by A. Parthasarathy who has a formidable reputation as a scholar of Hinduism. I could well understand that as I read his best known work The Eternities: Vedanta Treatise â first published in 1978, now in its 13th edition. He writes lucid prose with apt quotations, poetry and anecdotes. It is as seductive an exposé of Vedanta as I have read. But when it came to answering the three questions which no one has yet answered, he gives traditional explanations. Why are we so different from each other? Most of us would answer because of genes inherited from our parents and our upbringing. Parthasarathy discretely attributes them to the "past" when he means exactly what most of us refer to as our previous lives before this one. I do not dispute his views about what we should do in our lives. He says it should be devoted to self realisation through meditation. He censors drinking as "taking intoxicants" and indulging the senses as improper.
For me, and the vast majority of my friends, drinking is different from addiction to alcohol or drunkenness and is a pleasant pastime. So is indulging in our senses given to us by nature. About life after death, he juggles with words which leave the reader utterly confused because he hesitates to say that he believes in reincarnation because his scriptures say so. Even the Dalai Lama whose leadership of his sect of Buddhism is based on belief in reincarnation denies its validity and has set up a council of elder monks to elect his successor.
Parthasarathy constantly talks of bliss of self-realisation. I have not met him but a lot of self-proclaimed teachers of religion who claim to have achieved sublime bliss. All of them have smug smiles of satisfaction on their faces, but I have never come across one who could laugh heartily. As for bamboozling readers with words, I quote just one example, a translation of a shloka, which runs: "Om. That is infinite. There is infinite. Infinite has come out of infinite. Take away infinite from infinite, what remains is infinite."
Can you decipher what it means? Why is it so hard to be truthful, and admit I do not know?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
how can he talk about Hinduism?