How Many Gods Do You Have?

Queries About India

 This was a frequent query in eighties while I was living in U.S., and it had been a major question even before that while on a visit to Europe, and perhaps it is not so any more. I never stopped to ask how other people answered it - just as I did not wonder how other people answered about caste, until I heard someone, another expat, answer it in a half sheepish manner "well it is there but it is going now" and I wondered why he was so embarrassed, of his origins and our glorious traditions, our heritage. Perhaps he had lived with what is wrong with it, and I had not encountered it at all. But that very difference was a reason to feel assured of us as a nation - if anyone could live in several cities and travel and grow to be a quarter of a century old and not encounter anyone asking anyone else "what caste are you", much less discriminate on that basis, we have emerged to our real self out of the medieval quagmire. And quagmire it has been all over the world - just look at the histories of various other nations, other cultures of the world of that era, and we have little or no reason to feel singled out as the specially embarrassing ones. 

 Of course, when it came to the first question - about how many gods - there was no question about any need of embarrassment, and I took it as a query of very innocent outsiders who did not comprehend - but went on to have a growing feeling of how special a heritage was ours, how complex our knowledge and how precious our freedom for everyone to acquire it personally, and how a reason for feeling special was the certainty that an illiterate poor peasant in remote rural setting in our land would know the answers to these questions about how many gods do we have. 

 Usually these discussions - or rather question and answer sessions - lasted at least an hour, the time needed before they were tired with getting too much and everyone felt we had had a good amount of non-professional but not frivolous talk after dinner. It began with "well, there are formally speaking 330 million, but important ones are fewer, and there are gradations of existence of beings at all levels in between, and ..." - and then there was the critical question, don't we have a concept of a one god? 

 Well yes of course - there is the universal Divine that is in and behind everything, but everything - including you, me, and every particle of every atom of the universe. And there are manifestations that are all these different things and elements and people and animals and birds and everything. 

 This is where people got lost, and this is where I couldn't see why they are lost, and concluded we were a lucky, blessed nation that did not get lost in this simple question. I had no idea they - anybody - thought that a simplistic monotheism, much less one that was irrevocably coupled with a necessary repudiation of all other possibilities of truth, was superior, and was much astonished when on my return someone of our heritage said it was an achievement. It was not even a realisation but an ancient west Asian tradition, I pointed out - Judaism had the concept long ago (not that that makes it more or less important, just that others who followed them in their tradition could not claim it as an original revelation) and other religions that followed from their tradition lifted and modified it to suit themselves. 

 It was again a surprise when it began to be clear that they thought it was a superior achievement - and other than being able to attack others with impunity it is not clear how it is superior, in fact it is a very pertinent question to ask if their monotheistic preference might not turn them around and point them in the opposite way or in fact has not done so these few millennia - one can use a name of a great persona and yet have a following based on not that person's really but quite others' path of making, and that path might lead away from what that great original person intended or preached. If this were not so there would not be so many warring sects, would there? And that seems to occur whenever there are traditions of worship that claim descent from one person, one authentic text by that person, and to the exclusivity of this one as against exclusion of all others. This exclusivity is as misleading as the idea that what one is following is in fact from that one person - people tend to forget that when there are intervening authorities that take away your own right to think matters through or even perceive directly, one is likely to be led astray, whether you are in search of Divine or just driving along a highway. 

 On a more recent stay in Europe I began to explain that our tradition is more of the nature of a university, where one might open oneself to as much or as little of the universal knowledge and might lead ahead if one had the capability, and whether one followed others by reading texts or tried to solve everything by oneself was not important, just as it was not important how many subjects one studied or how long. Finally it mattered what you know, how much you can see, and that need not come from having read or attended lectures, it was quite possible to be a genius and perceive directly. 

 And as for people they cannot all be fooled all of the time - if you had any good in you, people had the right to revere you or follow you for as long as they wish; and if they did not grant you exclusivity that was only sensible, while others who did not respect or acknowledge or follow you had that right too. But important was - is - the freedom one has to follow one's own perception, and to realise the Divine. And since the Divine is universally known (in our tradition) to be within oneself there was no compulsion to follow another person blindly. One is responsible for one's own soul and the decision to follow someone is one's own, just as one cannot drive along a highway or any road without assuming responsibility - and if one gave responsibility to someone else it is one's own decision, not something forced on you, not completely.

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 I don't think, never thought, I convinced anyone much less converted - but then that had never entered my thought at all, and seems as ridiculous as convincing someone to say do physics or music or poetry at a university rather than whatever it is they prefer to do. What I had been doing is answering questions they asked, and funny thing is it was my understanding that grew, or at any rate grew to be more explicit. I began early during these question and answer sessions to be aware of how profound, how rich our heritage is, and how fortunate we are to be born here with all this inheritance and freedom. Where else do you have so much freedom you can deny all of it and not invoke a social and more excision upon yourself? Here what is required of you is a behaviour that is civil and a personal routine that is hygienic, more than a belief that is forced on oneself in absence of direct knowledge. Knowledge is offered, and it is for you to choose to acquire it any way you choose. 

 More than one person - but fortunately not all of those who had these conversations with us - during this recent stay in Europe got huffy and suddenly exclaimed they hated preachers, and I was a bit mystified, asking them if they mean their routine of being preached at once a week, and those who did it - I couldn't see why they hate those who do it, all they have to do is to stop going, if they hate it so. 

 I asked them - and it turned out they meant (they clarified this in clear words) they hated "people who tried to convert others", and it took some time to dawn on me they meant me, at which I had to laugh, it was so out a concept. I was merely answering questions they had begun, no more and no less. 

 Later - there were two logical questions, or rather one question and one answer (not to that question). 

 Obviously the first question is if you hate "preachers who try to convert others" - what are you saying about your own tradition, one that cannot stand a prevention of any idea of a forced conversion, one that supposedly would suffer greatly without the right to convert others, one that sees the world divided into the converted who go to heaven no matter what they do and the others that go to hell no matter however good and faultless they are? If you hate those who convert others why are you in that tradition? 

 The second obvious question is why ask questions if you don't like the very act of having them answered, and are in no state of mind to hear the answers much less comprehend them and evaluate them? 

 The second was the one easy to see the answer to - it is because they expected to have a shamefaced, downcast Asian, that they could then lead oh so very kindly to the little candle light and have a profusely grateful recipient of a little bounty (of your own conversion) of their giving bestowed on. They are upset because the Asian turned out to be not quite the bounty recipient they had been expecting to bestow their way on. 

 And instead, I had pointed(metaphorically) to the thickly draped window and said, there is Light out there everywhere, it is only your choice to open the drapes and the window to let Light in, or even the door to go out (and your ability to stand it), that limits you. You can choose not to, but the Light is everywhere out there all the same.

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 Fortunately, not all, or not even majority of, encounters were of this pattern; in fact they were about half or fewer, some more explicit and some not quite so much. There were better encounters, better dialogues, and some budding friendships of heart and mind too. 

 But of course when one met a person of a different culture it seemed natural they would ask what we do or believe, and how we are different. Differences of food are more obvious of course, especially after a vegetarian dinner at our place - and so are those of traditional clothes. So the talk turns to other, more discussion-oriented topics. How do you find your partner, how do people react to young people finding their own partners, what do you believe, and so forth. Often they did not seem to get it that people are same everywhere, and different structures are not necessarily worse, only different. 

 Some did not go this far and the conversation about the differences got stymied at the bathing question, with a delicate suggestive "isn't India hot" seeming to suggest that is why we bathe - India can be quite cold in major part for half a year and hot water is the norm for bathing, is what I would have explained if there was a straight question about if this was the reason - but the fact of course is Europe bathes less because they had very cold weather, no facilities historically for the poor to bathe quite so often without risking death, and not a clear comprehension that it might be a good idea now that circumstances have changed. Our landlord in England proudly and disdainfully informed us that our shower not working well was not a problem because they "never used the shower that much" and he did not mean they used the bath either, not that much. I wondered if he knew he was giving a less than sanitary impression of his country to foreigners. 

 Perhaps he didn't care - since they, at least some non-thinking ones, quite possibly do confuse a lighter skin colour with being clean, and do not realise - even today - that the two are entirely different.

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 One dialogue with some friends was surprising and a little hilarious though we did not laugh then. 

 We had been invited for a dinner mid-day, and it was very relaxed and quite ceremonious, this being very close to Xmas. Afterwards there were home baked cookies and cake and coffee, and just as we were more than overfull there was a pineapple brought forth, and cut speedily to our delight of watching it being done. Then she offered it and asked if I would like some sugar on it, and I said "No, - actually I would like it with salt and black pepper" - they were quite astonished and disbelieving, watching me do it after asking several times if I was sure. then they tried it with a little salt and found they loved it, and they could even explain it - it brings out the taste, actually, they found. I informed them about how we eat fruits in Delhi as a chaat, with a special mixture (chaat masaalaa) of spices that makes it a delight and that they could find in any Indian grocery store in the town. 

 The talk turned to Turkish immigrants and they were talking about how those people did not even learn the local - German - language after living there for twenty, thirty years. He said, after all a nation has to have a language everyone speaks (I am not quoting words but the gist) and I thought a little and said, India is a very good example of a nation of many different languages and religions living together. 

 A little perplexed, he said, but everyone speaks English in India! 

 "No", I said, very surprised, shocked, "not even one percent of the population". Then it was time for explanations or what amounted to facts taken for granted in India and revelations for them - we have more than twenty languages, each with further few dialects of its own, etc. etc. - we have as many or more different cuisines and ways of dressing as well, even with the same six or nine yards of a saree. And so on and so forth. 

 "But everyone speaks English with me when I visit" he said; well, if they did not they would avoid speaking with you, and you are limited to very large, very metropolitan and cosmopolitan cities when you visit, after all, I reminded him. Finally, we are a billion people, and one percent is still quite large a number, I pointed out. 

And there were more revelations, about how many people are bilingual due to necessities of life in the region or even otherwise, as a matter of fact - three languages or four normal in at least two states of southwest, for example, often more due to people migrating from one linguistic region to another. So English is merely another language India has made her own, but without replacing any of the indigenous languages. Just as the Gregorian calendar is merely added to the normal Indian calendars used at home for other purposes while the Gregorian is limited to public arena. And so on and so forth. Male attire, another example - most men dress western for going out or work while in cities and at white collar official work, but other works or home attire is a matter of suitability and necessities and weather. 

 Then the talk turned to European union, the Euro being very new then, the currencies being exchanged at the banks. I told them they had mostly one script, unlike us, and that was a revelation or at least a new idea too. I asked if he had not seen Indian currency notes - he had not noticed this part, he said. So we showed a five rupee note with its many scripts informing the holder in our many languages that it was five rupees. 

 That was a good little pointer for our unity in diversity, our richness of variety living and growing together, in the bosom of Mother India. As do our 330 million gods, and we, and all other entities and particles of the cosmos too, in the bosom of the Divine.

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