Do Something!

All religions struggled with this question and have answered it in various ways. All are worth looking into. In India, poverty, misery and injustice are not only pervasive and predominant but also so blatantly obvious. The Hindu answer is withdrawal. Each person to his or her karma. You reap what you sow. Very reasonable answer to troubling questions. If one does not accept this then withdraw from the world itself—become a sadhu or a sanyasi. What we see is delusion or maya. The play goes on and on. It is unreal so better not get involved.

Buddha also gives a very practical answer. All misery and suffering is caused by attachment and desire. Try to become void of desires and all will be well. In other words cease to exist—become sunya or nothing. The Muslims and Jews believe in strict adherence to the prescribed law and great discipline. Do your daily prayers in the strictly prescribed manner; do the required fasting and pilgrimage and all is well. Marxists go the path of historical determinism and class struggle. Religion for them is the opium of the masses.

None of the above faiths deny the essentiality of good works and helping others. The Hindu scriptures note that kindness or daya is the essence of dharma. Islamic sharia even prescribes a certain amount of one’s income to be used for zakat or charity. Buddhism says karuna or compassion is the highest virtue. The second of the three cardinal teachings of Sikhism is to share what you have with others (bant chakna). Adherents of the above faiths try to do what they believe to be charitable and good.
We Christians do more or less the same—go to church, read your Bible, give money to the church and charity and try to be good. But Faiz shows, though not explicitly, that we are really hypocrites. Hypocrites because we do not do what we are mandated to but, even more so, because we believe we can change the world and are the masters. We have to remember that Peter began to drown when he attempted to walk on water.

The other faiths have their own answers whether right or wrong. For a Christian, however, the question remains. Jesus does not like hypocrisy. He rebuked the Pharisees again and again. Christianity is a guilt – driven religion. We are the only ones who believe in original sin. So what is the solution? I do not think there is one. We have to accept that we are hypocrites and utterly dependent on God’s grace. We cannot follow Jesus’ example, though we should try. We, with some notable exceptions, cannot touch the lepers; cannot stop to listen to the cry of the blind man in the din of our busy life; cannot pray for our tormentors; we cannot love the way Jesus asks us to. So we go to Jesus and he redeems us. That is the essence of faith for me. There is no answer; there cannot be an answer. There is only a way out. The long journey of faith. There is no way out, only a way in.

“For ages you have come and gone courting this delusion. For ages you have run from the pain and forfeited the ecstasy. So come return to the root of root…” —Rumi