[nukkad] Excerpts

["HOMI KAIKOBAD" <>]

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Excerpted from `When 2 + 2 makes None', by Dr. Homi Kaikobad. Copyright
2000. All rights reserved.

DIVISIVE WORSHIP - DIVIDED DIVIDENDS

People offer divisive worship to multiple Gods, Goddesses and Deities as
though more will prove to be merrier, a catch-all net where if one misses
the other will bring response. Nothing could be more dangerous or counter
productive in spiritual and temporal terms.

Take any Hindu shrine at home and you will find a Ram, a Krishna with his
Radha, in the far corner perhaps Maruti-Hanuman and farther to the right a
Lakshmi. Somewhere in the middle one may find a Ganapati, in the foreground
a Lingham protruding out of a Yoni at an anatomically impossible angle. If
this is Mumbai there will be for certain a Sai Baba old, and sometimes the
new one to boot. There might be an odd assortment of Kammu Baba, Meher Baba,
Haji Baba. If we are more near Pune one might find the old Baluchi woman
Baba Jan transplanted out of the terrible foothills of Turbat to the
northwest of pre-partition India, to the streets of the city. There will be
the ever present Shiva, Mahesh to some, with his pet cobra and ashen torso.

Outward worship partakes of submission, fear and bribe. Inwardly there is
only self-centering experience till there is no more to go. By dividing our
chetan, chitta, dhyan, we fritter away the ekta, oneness we are capable of.
Worship should one day lead to introspection, and introspection to Positing,
where you begin to see the matrix of your soul. Inward journeys are therefor
without fear, there is only you inside. Submission? You cannot submit to
you. Fear? There is nothing which you may fear in you.

Look at the meanings of the sequential words we invoke in outward worship,
whether of one or many godheads. Webster:

WORSHIP = Old English - worth-ship
meaning - religious reverence, homage

REVERENCE = Old French - reverer
meaning - to revere with mingled fear, to feel awe

AWE = Old English - ege
meaning - wonder mingled with veneration and dread
also - awful, majestic, dreadful, terrible, horrible, ugly

Our journey from Worship onwards back into time ends up with Terror, Horror
and Dread. This is not far fetched because we have just the God or Goddess
we want to match the various qualities of worship:

If we want to venerate - we have Ram
If we want to feel wonder - we have Ganapati with his impossible anatomy and
implied merit
If we want to fear - we have Kali, who satisfies our need for the horrible,
terrible, dreadful, awful and ugly

One might improvise and abridge and obtain some more attributes in our
worship:

If we want to love - we have Krishna with his sautan Radha
If we want to experience greed  - we have Lakshmai with the thalis of gold
coins
If we want to lust  - we have various Goddess forms artisans create for us
with full figures
[One has yet to see an anorexic Goddess, perhaps because always men makes
these]

If we want to destroy - we have Shiva the destroyer, even if it is our
dur-gunas
If we want to hate - we have the Seven Subsidiary Goddess, e.g. Sitla
If we want virility or a Vanar sena - we have Maruti-Hanuman

There is not one God or Goddess for personal courage, genuine application to
one's own soul, a marker which leads inside to the true Aham.

The worst and most sinister mix-up prevails in the interaction with living
humans turned Babas, gurus, saints, murshids. The relationship is still "I
want", but if one does this inspite of having a legitimate ancestral God or
Goddess, one is simply extending the `I fear-I submit-protect me-give me'
syndrome. This is done singularly by attachment and regular visits to the
shrines, following the Thursday vraths, and Friday rituals in a blind,
supplicatory  way, the while pretending it is worshipful and genuine. All
one is doing is playing second-base, a little extra insurance. Thus we have
then the hybrid forms:

Sai-Ram, Sai-Krishna, Sai-Maruti, Sai-Saraswati, complete with darshans on a
regular basis and logic out the window. Neither is there sincerity in this
not any degree of courage, self reliance. You are covered from the God side
as well as the Guru side.

So what does this all lead to? Stop short, think it out, decide. If you want
to do the latter:

One - stay with one form, and implant that in your sensorium. This will
serve you well one day when things are not going right.

Two - stay with the one form which most suits your puja profile,
rajo-tamo-sato-free lance.

Three - don't guru and baba by sensationalism and rote, think what you want,
why are you here, should you be here, how to reconcile with the single-icon
necessity. Some of there places are dangerous and you may end up with more
jinxes than you went there with.

The final step?

Jettison the outside and somersault inside. You will find more safety,
wisdom, succor in a day than in a lifetime with the outer forms. And here
you are your own God and guru and Disciple and Lover and Knight.

Right? Right.










































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