Valson Thampu - Mother Teresa shows the way: Faith in scepticism

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Deccan Herald Deccan Herald » Edit Page »  MAIN ARTICLE Mother Teresa shows the way: Faith in scepticism By Valson Thampu We have distorted our religious traditions by eroding from them the spirituality of scepticism and seeking. “Where is my faith? Even deep down…there is nothing but emptiness and darkness… If there be God —please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul … How painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal…what do I labour for?”: Mother Teresa. It shocks many to see these words in Mother Teresa’s diary. Ironically, diehard pietists and dogmatic secularists are apparently one in assuming that saints are not human and that they are untouched by the inner anguish, self-doubt and uncertainties. They seem to assume, further, that religion has no margin for being honest about oneself and that it demands an unthinking conformity to religious stereotypes. What is the truth? Jesus was assailed by doubts of the most agonising kind. “If it is possible,” he prayed, “take this cup away from me.” On the cross he cried, “My Father, why have you forsaken me?”  Given that, Mother Teresa’s words of spiritual bewilderment need not sound unfamiliar! What needs to be recognised is that truth is to spirituality what blind faith is to conventional religiosity. Commitment to truth involves being honest with oneself. That honesty urges us to acknowledge the doubts and uncertainties that stalk us in our journey of faith. That is why we are, at best, only seekers and not smug know-alls. We need to seek because, as of now, we see only in part and we need to find the whole. Truth is a function of the whole and seeking is the pilgrimage of truth. The impetus for this truth-pilgrimage is the awareness of one’s spiritual poverty. The opposite of this is complacency, the offspring of blind faith. It makes us assert what we do not know and absolutise the trivial when the colour or smell of religion is cast upon it. It is the seed of the aberrations that abound in the domain of religion: the intolerance, cruelty, self-deception and manipulation. If only we were a little more sceptical, we would have been humbler and better human beings! The sceptical words of the Mother are far more spiritual than a hundred unthinking endorsements of orthodoxy. Regrettably, religion and reason have been placed in opposition to each other. Truth is the first casualty of this false construct. This is a serious matter because truth is the seed of justice. To compromise truth is, therefore, to promote injustice. Hence it is that communal religion lends itself to violence, cruelty and injustice.   Let us have faith in scepticism! Cocksureness about God is an insult to God. The first truth about God is his transcendence. God, if there is one, cannot be owned, predicted, manipulated and wielded at will as an instrument of parochial or partisan interests. It is instructive to recall the response of the then Archbishop of Canterbury to the request of the Queen to pray for British victory in the Falkland war. The venerable archbishop told the Queen politely that he would have to pray for soldiers on both sides! That is the problem with God. We cannot draw an arbitrary line — geographic, ethnic, religious or cultural, and expect God to play partisan on our side.  We have distorted our religious traditions by eroding from them the spirituality of scepticism and seeking. As a result, religions have become a source of spiritual blindness. Our blind religious loyalties have degraded us into, in the words of Matthew Arnold, “ignorant armies that clash by night,” not knowing who we fight and what we fight for. Honest scepticism, the like of which the Mother exemplified, is a far greater blessing to the world than thick-skinned, hypocritical religiosity whether it presents itself as communal politics or fundamentalist lunacy.  This could offer an alleviating perspective on the vexatious Amarnath shrine issue and the pointless suffering it continues to perpetuate. When will we develop the mental freedom to know that God has no favourite haunts and joints? That, the Creator of the Universe does not dwell in man-made churches, temples, mosques and shrines? That, if there is a temple in this world, it is only your heart and mine? That, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity are all nothing but the clothes we wear to cover our nakedness before God and our fellow human beings, and not the swords we flash against each other? For our eyes to open, we need to develop the spirituality of scepticism as against blind faith whose purveyors, in religion and politics, lead us by the nose to sub-serve their vested interests. Spirituality is a call to truth and freedom, and not an excuse for falsehood, depravity and mental slavery. The courage to say, “I have no Faith” is sweeter to God than the animal cries of blind faith. Mother’s words of anguish -“I have no faith” are, in truth, the slogan of true freedom: freedom from hypocritical and fearful religiosity. Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Deccan Herald