Eashwar Allah Tere Naam - What’s His Name

Field Marshall Jan Smuts, the Prime Minister of South Africa between 1919-1924, professed the theory that living matter or reality is made up of organic or unified wholes that are greater than the simple sum of their parts. He coined the word ‘Holism’ to his theory, which does not endorse the belief in the existence of the soul. In 1934, soon after World War II, Smuts advocated that one should not hate Germany for what happened, but to revive it sympathising with its citizens. In 1934, before a large audience, Smuts stated, “How can the inferiority complex which is obsessing and, I fear, poisoning the mind, and indeed the very soul of Germany, be removed? Fair play, sportsmanship — indeed every standard of private and public life — calls for frank revision of the situation. Let us break these bonds and set the ‘complexed-obsessed’ soul free in a decent human way and Europe will reap a rich reward in tranquility, security and returning prosperity.” In a sense, he could be right, moreover, he was speaking of humanity and not canvassing for any religion or faith.

Speaking of religion, my life until fourteen years of age was in Christian boarding schools only. Initially, I was sent to a boarding school named St. Joseph’s Convent in Guntur when I was six years old, in 1962. The next year, my family shifted me to a larger boarding school, the Loyola Public School in Nallapadu, on the outskirts of Guntur; which was my home and world for the next seven years. Our daily curriculum included a variety of prayers, right from the beginning of the day until we went to bed at night. We prayed before meals, after meals, before school, before we went to bed at night, etc. Our last prayer at night was: Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven…Amen.

Those prayers were recited by all the boarding mates whether Hindu, Muslim, or Buddhist, in unison without any resentment, singing with the same spirit. There was never a controversy and none of the parents objected to the way of life at the boarding school. I never pictured that ‘Our Father’ as Ram or Krishna in Heaven; it was neutral, in general. Further, we also had Moral Science classes once every week, and there was this septuagenarian Jesuit named Kalathil who is unforgettable for he was exactly like the character in a celluloid - the ‘wise’ old man. Father Kalathil experimented with ‘retreat’ classes which started with a brief in the beginning for about fifteen minutes about the theme of the day and then we were asked to roam around the wild pondering about it. The ‘retreat’ classes became our favourite as we were left to think freely about something we fancy in our minds, but definitely not about God. Those retreats were a great respite and fun compared to the tedious study hours.

Then came donations to ‘Sisters of the Poor’ or the ‘Brothers of Don Bosco’, etc. They were mostly orphanages or schools for the economically underprivileged. We donated graciously, every class competing with each other to be the highest donor. Our class was from highly affluent families of Krishna and Guntur districts of Andhra Pradesh, belonging to industries such as Tobacco, Sugar, Oil Extraction, Cinema, etc., and some rich landlords. Donations were also pooled by the sale of a journal called ‘Soldier of God’ preaching Christianity. We never treated them as unpleasant but went on mechanically as a routine, as we were innocent without any infirmities in mind.

Later, I did my plus-two at Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada, but here there were no such religious practices, but there was an exclusive Christian hostel. In the later years in college, there was a Christian friend named Socrates a very rare name indeed. His father, Mr Nelson, a Railway employee named his two sons Socrates and Julius Caesar. I was always curious as to why they were named so, so one day, I hesitatingly inquired and my friend informed me that his father wanted to baptise the non-Christian historical legends, and it gave him immense satisfaction as he had proved his loyalty to the church. In this context, I wish to cite an interesting anecdote by my Guruji in one of his discourses, which I am compelled to narrate to compliment the present topic.

Once upon a time, there lived a very rich merchant in a village who had several provision stores. He was happily married and blessed with three sons. He had two most ambitious agendas to accomplish — one was to establish three more provisional stores so that his three sons will have each one store for themselves for their livelihood, and the second was that he must go to heaven in his afterlife. He believed that whoever chants the name of God at the time of his last breath will definitely find a place in heaven, hence he named his sons Shiva, Narayana and Brahma. Accordingly, he established three provisional stores in the nearby villages when he got all his sons married. With that, his first life goal was fulfilled. Over a period of time, he fell sick and the village physician indicated to his family members that he might not survive for long. During his last hours, all his three sons assembled at his bedside, only to find that their father was not in consciousness. One morning, the father slowly opened his eyes and recognised his sons with a hazy vision, and realised that his final hour had arrived. He called them each by name, ‘Shiva’, ‘Narayana’, ‘Brahma’, he feebly enquired “My dear children, when did you come?” “Two days ago, Father” the sons replied in unison. “Oh!” he was pleased and closed his eyes for a while, and then suddenly remembered and shouted in an exploding voice “You idiots, who is minding your stores when you are present here?”, with those last loud words, he passed away instantly from a massive heart attack. Poor chap, everyone was clueless whether he reached heaven or not.

After creating millions of galaxies, the Almighty might have wanted to create a wonderful planet with some unique features where he could frequent during his busy schedule; hence he triggered a super-blast of a large burning ball that formed the solar system. The third planet of the solar system, popularly called Earth, was a combination of many elements and most importantly five, which were continuing his work by default with several combinations and algorithms evolving lively creatures. From a single-cell life, the five elements helped in evolving a new creature with a simple unattractive body with a skin of less density and hair all-over but not exotic, which eventually evolved for over a billion years and finally became mankind, a name which they themselves gave. Surprisingly, the brain of this kind was extraordinarily superior with many features and the Creator might have felt satisfied that they would be his trustees in maintaining the balance of his creation on this wonderful planet with responsibility.

But unfortunately, mankind evolved as the wildest of all creatures, threatening not only the other creations such as the animals and plants but also the five elements. The most pathetic of all is that mankind hunts its own kind by interpreting the Creator in different forms, whereby the balance of nature has gone into a quandary. The Creator might have tried to communicate in different forms and modes but admittedly failed. So, a more sophisticated system was engineered which recycles one kind into another by destruction, hence I am sure the clock started. The cause for all this is purely due to conflict of faiths, failing to identify the real God in humans. The tolerance that we had in our childhood of yesteryears had eroded and the present society constantly reminds us of who we are and which faith we belong to, sparing no compassion to others as humans as if they were created by another God.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the ‘Father of our Nation’ was a great human being and aptly referred to by the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore as ‘Mahatma’ meaning the ‘exalted soul’. The term ‘Paramatma’ means the absolute soul, which can be also named as per one’s own faith and belief. Obviously, there cannot be two or more ‘param atmans’ despite there being multiple faiths in the world. Gandhi’s endeavour was to unite people of all faiths in our country as one community. Gandhi tweaked the famous Bhajan (prayer) ‘Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram …’ where a verse was recomposed as ‘Eashwar, Allah, tere naam…’, meaning that whether it is Bhagwan Eashwar (the God of Hindus) or Allah the Merciful (the Almighty of the Muslims), he is the only One. Gandhi professed that all names belong to the Almighty.

My Guruji who is my mentor, states that if the Creator has a name and if he has an address at a place called heaven, then he cannot be called as God. If he had any character, then he is no God either. The Creator has to be ‘Nirvikara’ - unblemished, uniform, which defines no other specific property other than the soul, i.e., Ātmā; that dwells in every human being whichever faith he belongs to. From that moment, I realised that the mighty unblemished soul dwells in all living things including humans, irrespective of the faith he follows. Undisputedly, Gandhiji was right and so was my mentor, that it is in every human that one should see the holy spirit, whatever be the name. After all, what’s in a name!