The Hindu Business Line : No exclusive god

He is a swamiji to whom you can ask anything... even something like: `Have you missed being with a woman?' The response is a smile and... "No, because I've been with millions of women... and men." In a long chat Suddhananda dispelled many myths, including associating saffron with Hindutva. As he holds forth on hunger, disease and ignorance having no caste or religion and being "the common enemy of entire mankind" and religion being nothing more that "understanding of yourself," one quizzes him on his saffron robes. Don't these denote Hinduism?

"Not at all, it's very difficult to accept but Hinduism is not a religion. It is all-inclusive; you can be a believer and a Hindu or a non-believer and a Hindu."

But with the country deeply divided on communal lines, would not a Muslim equate his saffron ensemble with Hinduism, and perhaps even with Hindutva?

"Just like inside a three-piece suit there is a very religious person, under a saffron robe there is a very secular individual. Just like the military, police, etc, have a uniform this is mine. Terrorists often misuse army uniform to create havoc; the same can be done with saffron. As there are fakes in every section of society, saffron can also be used by fake sadhus. So don't accept the stereotype that saffron means fanatic and three-piece suit means secular."

Suddhananda finds "fighting in the name of religion an absolute nonsense", and advocates the remedy of self-knowledge. Tracing the genesis of medical science, he says earlier people used to sacrifice goats to cure a disease until somebody started thinking, took blood samples and discovered the disease-causing virus. "If you killed the virus, the disease was cured and along with the virus, the virus god was killed too! Thus began the honeymoon with science and man got more and more educated to cure the disease of ignorance. But just as medicines have side-effects, education has a tremendous side-effect called individuality."

He says sociology defines education as that "which rescues an individual from a mass of collectivity and gives you an identity. As an uneducated person you are one among millions. But once you get educated, you call yourself a Ph.D; you're no longer a `human being'. So this is a huge side-effect of education that needs to get cured, or else it will kill," he says. Taking care of the side effects of individuality or ego is crucial and this comes with understanding yourself.

Private arrangement

"And this is not religion; once you understand yourself then if you want, you can have your god in a tree; the choice is yours. People pretend to live by a set of rules. But nobody lives by a set of rules. Everybody makes a private arrangement."

Suddhananda had "an excellent childhood" in a small village in Orissa; his father was a landlord and the boy, a first-generation learner, went on to do an M.A. in English Literature at the Ravenshaw College in Cuttack. The IAS exam he wished to take was delayed by the 1972 cyclone, and with nothing much to do he applied for a Brahmachari course advertised by the Swami Chinmayananda Foundation in Mumbai; "I was more interested in seeing Bombay, where I had never been," he chuckles.

Becoming a swami was never on his horizon. At the interview he met Swami Dayananda; "I had no idea what a Swami was like. In Orissa the swamis are more like mendicants. I remember my mother feeding them. If a pot falls into the well, he has to go and retrieve it; that was the only kind of swamis I knew." So he frankly told Dayananda about his mission to see Mumbai and showed him the matinee cinema ticket for Dustin Hoffman's The Graduate.

During the course of the discussion, Suddhananda talked about how one man's dream is based on somebody else's reality. "I want to be a Professor because somebody else is a professor. I was the secretary of the PG English courses and my friends coveted that post because they could talk with girls. I also found that our top professors had fragile feet; when they returned home they had to deal with problems there."

As he talked in this vein, suddenly Dayananda told him he was selected. "But I did not feel good; I knew I'd be selected because I was a smart fellow. But I didn't select him because I thought he was asking silly questions. And then somebody came and prostrated before him, which was very strange to me; in the north we just touch feet to show respect."

But when Dayananda said he wanted students to "forget about god and come so I can tell them something, I thought this was fine and decided to join."

Love for fish

While his father was not happy with his decision, the mother coolly said: "If you want to go, you should have gone, why are you asking me?" That was the turning point. But she also asked him, "Who will give you fish? You're a fish lover and eat it every morning and evening."

Ask him if he misses fish, and Suddhananda says: "Now if I eat fish, people will say something is fishy. But in those days if I didn't get fish, I'd cry." The mother who bid him goodbye with his last fish meal was an amazing woman, "she was always smiling... I don't remember ever seeing her with a miserable face." When his elder brother died of cancer, somebody told her: "Your one son is a sadhu; he is gone and as good as dead. The other one is really dead. What are you going to do?"

"To this she replied: `Janam tau diya, karam tau nahi diya' (I gave him birth, not his destiny). That was my mother... the essence of a good human being."

As his mother had expected, the first day he was miserable. "I couldn't eat sambhar... to go straight from mustard oil and fish to vegetarian food and coconut oil was horrible. I wanted to run away, but soon got used to it."

He told his friends who suggested he should teach in the University that the subjects professors teach and who they are, are two different things. "That is why they need to prepare for their classes or else they'll become obsolete. But here what I teach and who I am are one and the same, and therefore I'm the latest at all times... I'd say I'm the absolute."

Isn't it arrogant to say that one is the absolute?

"No, there is no arrogance because you are as much absolute as I am; as much infinity as I am. Every human being is that. If I say, `Yesterday I met George Bush' or `Bill Gates called me,' you'll say this fellow is pompous. As also somebody who says he is a Ph.D or a millionaire. Because then you create a sense of inferiority, but when I say I am happiness and infinity, or compassion and immortality, you're also included."

After completing the course he went to the field to teach; "we have engineers, doctors, butchers, plumbers... so I thought somebody is needed to teach this also; in fact I was beautifully placed because I had a PG degree from a university as also the best ancient traditional knowledge; a combination of the modern and ancient is deadly!"

After a stint in Orissa he came down to Chennai, where he set up his Ashram (Suddhananda Foundation for Self Knowledge), which also runs a school for poor children. He left Chinmayananda Foundation after a three-year stay "because I wanted to be absolutely free to say what I wanted; you can't do that in an organisation."

`I'm not god's agent'

Underlining the importance of self-knowledge, Suddhananda says this is a fantastic time to be alive. Many people come and tell him that they don't believe in god because there is so much of disease, injustice etc, and what kind of god would allow so much of suffering. "So I tell them, don't worry if you don't believe in God because I'm not god's agent. If he exists, our disbelief is not going to make him disappear and if he doesn't exist, our belief is not going to create him. The existence of anything is independent of our belief or disbelief, so let us not talk about it."

He frowns at the title `modern guru' and quips: "Are you my student? If you're not, then I cannot be a guru, we're only friends. Just like there is no husband without a wife, and so on. Today with all kinds of people posing as gurus, the `guru' has become a scam."

Commenting on the deep divisions in the world in the name of religion, Suddhananda says, "Religion has nothing to do with god. God is not a religious guy and he has no religion. Sixty years ago there were no Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, till you divided this country into different parts. Before the Earth was divided into continents, there were no Asians, Africans or Europeans, and we just had people of one earth. Before divisions were created, a source of thought existed and that had no divisions, so how can you give a religion to a source of thought? This division into Christians, Muslims, Hindus is dangerous because we are all human beings."

Stressing on the importance of happiness, Suddhananda says a miserable human being will make a "miserable father, sister, mother, son, teacher, or a miserable follower of this religion or that god. If you are happy and I am happy, the colour of my dress doesn't matter. Let everybody be happy observing Christmas, Ramzan or Deepavali. Let the whole world be peaceful, but don't say you must observe only this festival and only this religion is the best! The moment you make an exclusive god, it becomes a dangerous business."

He wants to do much more for children's education - he has started a couple of schools in Orissa too - but lack of funds is a serious constraint. "You need tricks to raise big money, but I have no tricks in my bag," he grins.

Suddhananda speak

Love for self: Everybody should love himself/herself. A garbage given to us is that loving yourself is selfish. That is rubbish. On an airplane, if the cabin pressure falls you're asked to first wear the oxygen mask and then help the child. That is not selfish, because if you want to help somebody, you must first find strength in yourself.

Happiness: Be happy, an unhappy man cannot give happiness to others. If he does, he will demand his pound of flesh.

Faith: Often, in the name of faith they ensure that your sense of self is sacrificed from childhood and your spine is broken. If you don't question god, how will you understand yourself?

Leaders: We lack real leaders; when a mob selects leaders, what kind of leaders are you creating?

Following rules: On a small road if two people ride a cycle, both will be very careful. But the moment you have four-lane highways and powerful cars, don't expect the fellow with a Ferrari to go in the last lane at slow speed. He'll go in the first lane at the fastest speed; he has both power and speed. At one point in society everybody followed rules but as more money and power came in so did decadence and degeneration. Don't expect the rich and the powerful to follow rules.

Essence of change: A small car can be made powerful by changing the engine, tyres, steering. But the driver must also change; otherwise, there will be havoc.

Yoga: Its purpose is to go into the stage of samadhi or absolute freedom. But today yoga is associated only with asana, out of the eight limbs people are stuck to only one limb and thus is yoga vulgarised. In the US they now have doga... yoga for dogs. When people come for yoga with their pets, the pets are taught doga!

Meditation: Meditation has become a business with gimmicks, a job... telling people hold your nose, close your eyes, listen to music, dance or stand on one foot. Temporary suspension for 15-30 minutes is touted as meditation. If suspending your mind for half an hour is so good, what about the deep sleep that god has given? Forget god if you don't like god... in deep sleep any average person is suspended continuously for 7-8 hours. If seven hours of natural suspension doesn't enlighten you, how will 30 minutes of suspension do that?

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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