Curse of the Earth

Curse of the Earth

In my childhood, I heard a story from my grand mother about the formation of the oceans. There were thousands of Sagar Brothers (सागर भया ), who ate the earth making big depressions that contained the water and became ocean. That is why these are called Sagar. In this process, the earth became angry and cursed the Sagar Brothers that they should perpetually be burnt. The Sagar Brothers were burning all the time and never ending. This awful plight of Sagar Brothers ended when Vagarith (वागरिथ) , brought Gangaji (गंगाजी) and liberated them from burning.

When I grew up, I used to pray in the morning before placing my feet on earth. The prayer was “Samudra Basana Devi, Parbat Stana Mandale, Vishnu Patni Namastuvyam Pada sparsha Khamasua Ma”(स मु ड्रे बसने देवि पर्बत स्तन मांडले , विष्णु पत्नी नमः तुभ्यं पाद स्पर्स ख्यमस्व में ". This is in Sanskrit, which means “O Goddess the wife of Vishnu, whose cloths are ocean and whose breasts are mountains, forgive me for touching my feet to you.”

While these stories and sanskrit couplets may be inconsistent and do not carry any real meaning, they show the fear of mankind, in different times, towards the destabilization of nature. When the earth is devastated by man by disfiguring its topography on a massive scale in a short period of time, the consequences are not good for its inhabitants. During my past few trips to my native town Berhampur, which is located in the state of Orissa, I have been noticing big green mountains (they may be called big hills as well) being cut, exposing the earth benith in the form of stones and soils of various color. Especially the red color gives an impression of cutting the breast of the mother earth. Ironically, these disfigured mountains are visible from the four lane free ways just before reaching the state capital Bhubaneswar and between Berhampur and Aska. Several mountains have disappeared.

Figure Caption: I took these pictures from my moving car while travelling from Berhampur to Bhubaneswar. 

What happens with these material coming from the mountains? Houses are built, many of which are incomplete and uninhabitable. Several engineering school and college buildings were built, which are now being closed. The other issue, I was thinking is that if more than billion people in India will built houses by cutting mountains, the situation is unsustainable.

Apart from being really disgusted by looking at these disfigured mountains our people make, like the Afgans disfigured the mountain Budhas, I am concerned and contemplated about the consequences. In Orissa, we already notice flooding followed by draught every year in the recent time, which is a direct consequence of destroying natural landscape in a massive scale in a short period of time.

I am pretty sure that this writing will have no impact, since most people have below average IQ, who invent new GODs and GODman every day and forget their tradition and time tested GODs from ancient time. Anyway, since I have been going through this thinking for past many years, I decided to blog it after my trip to my home town in Orissa last week. So, what can I do? I decide not to contribute to any charity that help natural disaster until these disfiguring of the “Mother Land” is stopped. Because these natural disasters are partly caused by the inhabitants in the contemporary world. It may have no impact, but will give me satisfaction.

GOD and Dharma (Righteousness)

GOD and Dharma (Righteousness)

Debi Prasad Choudhary

Los Angeles, California

10/10/2013

I am a ¹Vaishnava. My grand mother belonged to ²Goudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya, follower of ³Sri Chaitanya Mahaprahu who was believed to be an incarnation of Sri Krishna in 1486. I have been fascinated by the life and deeds of Sri Krishna from my childhood. So much so, that at one stage, when I was completing high school and got an opportunity to receive “initiation for spiritual practice” (⁴Mantra Dikhiya) from a renowned Guru Sri ⁵Swami Chidanandaji Maharaj, I decided to select Sri Ram as my “⁶Ista Devata” not Sri Krishna. Because the life of Sri Krishna was so complex, that at the age of 20, I was not so sure if all that was divine. Sri Ram looked to me more divine, so I thought it is safe to adopt him as my form of GOD. This week, I started thinking again about Sri Krishna, his complex personality and accomplishments. This gave me an opportunity to think about the “⁷Sambhabami Yuge Yuge” statement in ⁸Srimad Bhagahata Gita. In this blog, I am going to describe some of it.

Actually, I am a believer, I believe that GOD exists. But, I do not know, what he does, what role he plays in our lives, nor I know what he did in past. One guess I can make safely, that he might have decided all the laws of nature that we are trying to discover every day leading to Nobel Prizes. In my native language (Oriya) there is a poetry in which the poet ⁹Jaganath Das says ”God becomes satisfied by seeing the divine knowledge in human being”. I think divine knowledge is the laws of nature, which to me looks more definite that any other form of knowledge. So, if God created or decided these laws of nature, he would not like them to be violated.

In my childhood, I heard that not only GOD but also even GOD-man performed miracles. I was suspicious from the beginning. I actually, looked for miracles, did not find any until entered college. I was always worried, because I thought may be I am not doing the right thing to experience the divine. When I took physics honors in college, and combined with the reasonable teachings of my spiritual Guru, I started formulating the role of GOD for myself. The first thing, I had to decide that what the GOD does? Surely not miracles, just because, I have not experienced one and I have not met any body yet who has experienced one that I can conclusively categorize as such. My definition of miracle is simple. If you drop an object from a height, it must go down towards earth’s surface. That is normal physical law. If it can be made go away from earth’s surface without applying force, I might call it miracle. In short, the event must defy the physical laws. So, if that is my definition, I thought, why should some divine body who made these laws would ever like to do some thing that do not comply with them. It was a bit confusing to me. So, than what GOD does? In Srimad Bhagabat Gita, He said, “when ever there is a decline of Dharma and advancement of ¹⁰Adharma, I take birth to establish Dharma”. This sounded me as a perfect match to the activity of GOD.

The next problem was that how do I ascertain that Sri Ram or Sri Krishna was GOD or even Jesus Christ was son of GOD? They existed long-long ago and there is no way to check the facts that defined the miracle events accurately. The only way is to read some of the teachings that are attributed to them. In the contemporary time, we see that if some body is a powerful person in the society, it is not difficult to find a group of people who can glorify all qualities that the individual possesses and describe that person as a some body special. We also find many GOD-man often called as GODs. So, if that is possible today, why can that not happen earlier thousands of years earlier? For example, Sri Krishna was an extraordinary person of his time who possessed the fine skills to sense the “Dharma” the righteousness that functions the daily lives of every member of the society. That, which distinguish human from animal. And, through out life, he strived to uphold it with the tools he possessed. He was admired by the elders of his time, feared by some and loved by common man. Over time he was described as GOD, who can do things that no ordinary mortal can perform. As, I think more and more about him, I am actually convinced that he performed the role of GOD.

So, to be a GOD means the contemporary elders must accept the individual as such. The individual must possess guts to uphold the Dharma. This morning, when I was walking to my office, I asked myself, is there any thing like that in our contemporary world? The immediate thing came to my mind is the act of Rahul Gandhi, the vice president of Indian National Congress. The other day, he came out against the proposed ordinance that allowed the criminals contesting election. Soon after, he publically expressed his out burst in front of the press, where party elders were arguing in favor of it, several elder statesman of Congress party praised him and described how brave and righteous he is. I just wanted to think of it as an event in ancient time, when there is no press, no fast communication, no concept of democracy. In such a world, can we not call him as GOD? After all he is good looking, compared to many contemporary young leaders, elders praise and obey him, he has access to enormous wealth (money) and physical power. In this incident at least, he did uphold Dharma. Because, but for him, may be the president of India would have been forced to sign the ordinance, since ¹¹Gyanis like ¹²Manmohan Singh, ¹³Chidambaram, ¹⁴Advani and others, who are equivalent of ¹⁵Bhisma, ¹⁶Dronacharya, ¹⁷Vidur actually did not oppose it or even favored it. Neither, younger leaders opposed it. So, I think, it is an act of GOD. But, can you call him GOD. In the modern time, it sounds awkward. But, such continued acts may elevate him to GOD-hood in the modern times as that will make lives of billions of people better by upholding Dharma.

¹Vaishnava: The worshipers of Vishnu, Hindu GOD – the administrator of the creation.

²Goudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya: One group of Vaishnava that deeply likes Sri Krishna’s childhood. ISCON followers are examples.

³Sri Chaitanya Mahaprahu: Leader of Bhakti movement. It is believed that He was the embodiment of devotion aspect of Sri Krishna.

⁴Mantra Dikhiya: Some hindus go through this ritual to start their spiritual practice. At that time, they accept a sage as their GURU, who gives them a Mantra (a short form of GOD’s name) to recite.

⁵Swami Chidanandaji Maharaj: A modern sage who lived in large part of 20^th century and early 21^st century.

⁶Ista Devata: The favorite GOD.

⁷Sambhabami Yuge Yuge: This is taken from one sentence of Srimad Bhagabat Gita. This says”take birth in different times”.

⁸Srimad Bhagahata Gita: An important scripture of Hindus.

⁹Jaganath Das: A poet in Oriya language, who lived, was born in 1490 AD.

¹⁰Adharma: This word has many connotations, but I use it in sense of opposite of Righteousness

¹¹Gyanis: Knowledgeable persons.

¹²Manmohan Singh: Prime Minister of India, who is a scholar and mostly honest person.

¹³Chidambaram: Finance Minister of India, who was educated in Harvard University.

¹⁴Advan: One of the most respected leaders in Indian politics with vast mass following.

¹⁵Bhisma: A powerful character in Mahabharata. Known for his courage and stand for righteousness.

¹⁶Dronacharya: Teacher of armory in Mahabharata.

¹⁷Vidur: A knowledgeable individual in Mahabharata who cared to rule of law.