Present Day Godmen-
This is the back ground against which we should examine the present abundant crop of spiritual Buvas and Babas. On one side is the saint Gadge Baba a standard bearer of selfless service while on the other side are rallied our modern spiritualist self styled Baba, Maharaj, Swami and Acharya.These so called Adhyatmic personalities never think of liberating the ordinary men and women from poverty, hunger, ignorance, diseases, exploitation, ritualistic practices, etc. They did not care to teach them dignity of labour or strike at the senseless superstitions; nor did they endeavour to purify the concept of god and religion in the minds of the common people. Instead of caring for the lame, helpless needy people, these modern spiritualists wrest personal service from them. Instead of pulling out the ignorant from the quagmire of rituals they organize big pompous and wishful Pooja rituals for satiating their vainglory. They wear garlands round their own necks but do not remove the noose round the neck of the common man.
People today are more self- centred and absorbed in themselves. They do not like to talk about social commitment or equality and want immediate solutions to their own problems, stresses and strains. The modern Adhyatma offers ready made answers to their problems. The answers are deceptive but appealing and capture the imagination of educated young generation. In fact the path shown by these god men leads our young generation to run after the mirage called “Moksha’ that brings all investigating endeavours to a stand still. It contains the seeds of demolition of the social fabric. If the crowd that is presently enamoured of Adhyatmic Buvabaji is diverted towards progressive social organizations then we can hope for some social change.
Despite many revelations of wrongdoings and corruption by the god men, their roaring business remains in tact. It is, therefore, all the more necessary and urgent to begin a harsh criticism of this phenomenon, for, this ‘Buvabaji’ is leading the public away from the legitimate social problems and their solutions and changing their awareness and understanding regarding the real causes of their difficulties. Under the influence of the Babas and Buvas taking action to solve the problems is altogether out of the question.
Why people get trapped?-
The deprived poor people of the ‘Bahujan Samaj’ turn to the ‘Babas’ to get relief from their poverty and the accompanying difficulties. The well-to-do educated middle class go to the ‘Maharaj’, who preach ‘live and let live’ policy. And the highly educated higher middle class go to ‘Acharya’ in search of ‘the art of living’. All these three institutions - Baba, Maharaj and Acharya - are individual centred. They start with the dictum- if the individual changes, the society will change. Next they preach the audience to uplift their own selves and progress. Finally they ask them to leave all the problems of their lives to the Adhyatmic powers of the god man and surrender to him. The audience is convinced that their beatitude lies in the total surrender to the god man. This whole process gradually de-socialises the individual.
Challenge posed-
The path of the rationalist movement is full of difficulties and challenges. One of those challenges is the spiritual pretensions of the god men.Today all our energy is spent in fighting superstitions of the primary state. Those who do not openly indulge in deceit and exploitation but harbour very regressive thoughts and act accordingly as do the Maharaj are unfortunately left alone. And the fight against the Acharya is altogether out of the question. Such Babas hold workshops for personality development provide health facilities and also do some other socially useful work. But they also generate indifference and aloofness towards progressive movements, administration, community life and even generates religious hatred at times. All this leads to the destruction of youth’s reasoning and gives it a wrong direction. This is quite dangerous and does not have a simple solution. We can only chalk out the direction thus: on one hand there is the responsibility of determining what is truth and what is not, what is right and what is not right.
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