Gods and Godmen of India Read Online Free PDF Page A

religions. They were mortals like us: born to women, ate and defecated like we do, were subject to diseases. And died. We do our best to distort their human qualities by making legends about their superhuman powers to distance them from ourselves and make them as powerful as God as His vicegerents. They had undoubtedly enormous powers to sway the people and bring about revolutions in their thinking and ways of living and thus contributed to our perception of them as akin to God, sacrosanct and beyond searching inquiry about their human frailties. You can jest about God but never about His Prophets. The attitude is well expressed in the Persian adage: Ba Khuda Diwana Basho/Ba Mohammed hoshiar! (You can say what you like about Allah, but beware of saying anything (derogatory) about Mohammed.) It is time we took a more objective view of the founders of different religions. By all means give them the respect due to great thinkers, philosophers, poets and leaders of men but worshipping them is neither fair to them nor to your own intellect.
    We should also take a closer look at the traditional attitude to our scriptures and prayers. You will notice that more obscure the text, the more religious fervour it rouses in the readers’ minds. Hence the use of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Pali, Sanskrit and Santbhasha – understood by a small minority of adherents of the faith. Read them translated into a language you understand and you will find them repetitive, banal and boring. Some passages will read well but even these rarely compare with great works of secular literature: Shakespeare, Goethe, Kalidas, Iqbal and others. In addition to being largely incomprehensible some passages of religious scriptures are invested with magical powers to ward off danger, heal the sick, exorcise spirits and banish fear. Just as the Hindus have the Gayatri Mantra, Muslims have the Ayat-ul-qursi and the Sikhs their Sohila to recite as the last prayer at night. It cannot be denied that prayer has power to infuse self-confidence but it can, and its often, known to achieve wrong ends. Even dacoits and thugs are known to pray before they embark on their nefarious errands.
    One does not have to go to places of worship like synagogues, churches, mosques and temples to pray. Without exception they have become places of commerce from which professional purveyors of religious dogma earn their livelihood. Prayers are best said in solitude and should be addressed to oneself. The most effective form I have discovered is to look yourself in the mirror before retiring for the night as it is very hard to stare into your own eyes and ask yourself, “Did I wrong anyone today?” You will be surprised how effective it is in preventing yourself from doing it the day following.
    All religions are creatures of their time and were meant to meet existing social problems. Thus, when the world was sparsely populated, there was religious sanction to go forth and multiply. Since wars generated shortages of men, men who survived were allowed to take as many woman as wives as they could afford. When India was a land of plenty, it could sustain sadhus and holy men who did no work but spent their time in prayer and meditation. Working people were happy to give them alms. Our problems are equite different today. The world is overcrowded; India has become the second most populated country on the globe. Nevertheless a sizeable proportion of this population continues to do nothing and live on beggary. Able-bodied people take to vanprastha or Sanyas with a clear conscience and do nothing but still enjoy religious approval. We have to evolve new moral codes, a new religion which takes note of our present problems.
    Our new religion must be based on work-ethic. Those who do not contribute materially to the well-being of society should have no rights. Institutions of sadhus, yogis and holy men living off earnings of others must be discouraged. Only the physically disabled should be