I was born in 1955 in independent India. When I look back today, without hesitation, the best moment in public life I witnessed is the construction of a grand temple and the consecration of the idol of Shri Rama Lalla in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024. That it took nearly 76 years after Independence to build a temple that invaders destroyed is a disgrace to the civilisation of more than a billion people. However, some say it is a celebration of democracy where the majority waited with patience. 

There have been devious designs to distort the history of India. First and foremost is the theory of Aryan invasion, declaring Vedic Civilization itself as an imported idea as if to justify the later invasions. The historical fact of magnificent temples in Tamil Nadu had been ignored. Which Aryan king made these temples? Germans created the Aryan theory to hide their barbarian past, but some Indian leaders bought it to disown their ancestors. In the modern era of DNA sequencing, would anybody bother to bust the myth of who came from where? It can be done quickly but won’t be done as certain myths matter more than facts. 

Every civilisation is proud of its symbols of pride and identity, and who are these detractors to deny that while they themselves practise all forms of false consciousness? Powerful lobbies have, for decades, arrogated to themselves the right to define Hinduism as they deem fit and only as they deem fit. It has been fashionable to call Shri Ganesha an elephant god and Hanuman a monkey god, and Shri Rama was declared as fiction in an affidavit in the Supreme Court. These people seem oblivious to the mass awakening of a billion people. 

Shri Rama and Shri Krishna are India’s identity. If some leaders and people do not understand this, their sensibilities are questioned. A little show of generosity would have done immense benefit to the spirit of secular India to have allowed the two temples of the birthplace of Shri Rama in Ayodhya and Shri Krishna in Mathura, free from later constructions, which were obviously carried out after the destruction of the temples that stood there. But a path of confrontation was chosen. Western Press has reminded readers in their headlines that a new temple has been created at the site of the razed mosque. The Indian Supreme Court has settled this issue, and every issue must be resolved at some point. 

At every stage, hurdles are created, and malicious people vacillate the atmosphere. All sorts of people said all kinds of things. But the Ram Mandir finally happened and ensued so marvellously. Most appropriately, it was also decided that the Ram Mandir shouldn’t be built by the government or by any businessman like the Laxminarayan temple in New Delhi, known as the Birla temple. The construction of the Ram Mandir represented a grassroots movement, a democratic effort to resist dominant interpretations of a misrepresented history. People donated money, the best engineering companies got involved, and finally, a grand temple is now there. The city of Ayodhya will be the epicentre for Hindu pilgrims as the Vatican is for Christians and Mecca for Muslims. The airport and other infrastructure have been thoughtfully constructed with that in mind. 

But now, not reflecting upon the reasons for the decadence of the Vedic Civilization would be a significant error. How come a few hundred invaders from Central Asian barren lands created such massive destruction and established their rule for such a vast land, manifold of their original territories? A false notion of societal stratification was at the root. With extraordinary efforts for social inclusion over the last few decades, Indian civilisation has naturally regained its vitality.  

Let us not see Ram Mandir as a culmination but a beginning of a just society where all people are equally treated and provided with opportunities befitting their talents, including helping those who had been disadvantaged. Ironically, certain families continue to be beneficiaries of incentives meant for the poor sections of society even after gaining stature and affluence. It is a travesty of justice when the poor of the higher castes languish without support that is extended to the poor of the other sections. 

In Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna says He repeatedly intervenes to restore order. I see the emergence of democracy, the advent of the Internet, and finally, the coming of Artificial Intelligence as these interventions. One can see that no single individual, company, or government is using these powerful technologies. They exist beyond anyone’s control and define a new kind of world. 

As I foresee, wealth is concentrated in a few hands – say, less than 100 technology companies will own most of the wealth. Now, these companies will have to circulate this money in the economy so that people can buy their products. So, people will be credited specific amounts in their accounts in whatever name, and everyone will thus have a basic income. The problem will not be about the livelihood; the problem will be to live purposefully.  

It is time to start working in this direction, and honing soft skills would be crucial as machines will increase the number of routine jobs. Most of us need not go to a grocer’s shop anymore as whatever is needed is delivered to our doorstep. Even food is served piping hot at your doorstep, and you pay more if you go and sit in a restaurant. Schools will be more for socialising and playing together than lessons, available online on the TV screens. These screens can be community-owned or donor-provided in poor regions. 

But what is most important is the emergence of a more humane society. The history of humanity is all about lies, fraud and exploitation. Sections of people created jargon and justifications to plunder the weak and ignorant people wherever they were. Patients were given dubious medicines, farmers had bad seeds, and spurious products were sold, exploiting people, especially the poor. Records were fudged, taxes were evaded, and falsehood prevailed as it was rewarded in every walk of life. Not anymore! 

Anyone can now see the profiteering by the doctors when diagnostic tests are ordered, and medicines are prescribed. No wonder the medical fraternity lost the awe it enjoyed. YouTube videos make politicians chew their words. Crimes are caught, punished, and captured on mobile phone cameras. Next in line are Blockchains weeding out fraudulent land records and sales. Thus, I celebrate the Ram Mandir and the fact that major technology companies of the world – Microsoft, Google, IBM, Adobe, Micron Technology, to name a few – are headed by people of Indian origin. 

The Tower of Babel is mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 11:1-9). The prideful ancient Babylonians wanted to build a mighty city and a tower with its top in the heavens. The work remained incomplete after they were cursed to speak different languages. As they could no longer understand one another, the people were dispersed over the face of the earth, leaving behind the incomplete tower. Since then, language has remained a significant barrier to the progress of mankind. The powerful communicated in a language not open to the general people. Even today, doctors use Latin and Greek in their practice.

In the seventeenth century, the French philosopher René Descartes spoke about a universal language using symbols and logic. The German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz tried to use numbers as a universal language for communication rather than letters and words. As computers arrived, where the only language was 0 and 1, language was deciphered as a program that operated independently following a specific set of instructions. To achieve tasks, new languages such as C, Pascal, and Fortran emerged to write machine instructions. As we enter 2024, JavaScript and Python are two of the most popular languages in the computer world. 

It did not take long for computers to pick up the rules of language used for expression by people – English, French, Hindi, etc. But different languages followed different rules. To the great surprise and satisfaction of Indians, the rules of Panini, who lived in 600 BCE in the Gandhar region of ancient India, were found universal. Words are crafted from sounds that carry emotions and acoustic envelopes in a few thousand instructions. Panini revolutionized this by linearly arranging the alphabet in sets according to their vocal properties.

Separating the databases (alphabets) from the algorithms (vocal sets) made it possible to understand a language from the root sounds rather than the noun roots, the verb roots, the gender rules for nouns, and so on. The sound blobs are bucketed into roots. There are immutables, non-overlapping suffixes, prefixes and infixes fixed on the 2000 root sounds. “Ra-ja” can be “ra-jah”, “ra-ya”, and “ra-cha”, for example. Remove labels and look for the substance. Voice and emotions are at the root of language – not words. 

Saraswati is the goddess of Vani (speech); she holds a Veena in her hands. By capturing the music, one can feel the divine! No wonder American musician and songwriter Robert Johnson (1911-1938) famously said that Sanskrit has 96 words for love; ancient Persian has 80, Greek has three, and English has only one. This indicates the scarcity of awareness or emphasis that we give to that tremendously important realm of feeling. Music transcends all this and conveys wholesome love as it is. 

Computer scientists quickly applied the separation of algorithms from databases into metalanguage – declarations, lists of lists, classes and inheritance, superimposition, overrides, global context, and scope resolution of methods. So, it is simple: I type a text and, in almost no time, get its translation on the screen. How? Artificial neural networks learn to recognize patterns by processing large amounts of data. AI knows the rest of the sentence when I start keying in the first few words. As soon as I write a sentence, AI understands the context. And after a few sentences are written, the entire message is captured. The rest is like music. 

One of the most sensible things that has happened in India is Bhashini, India’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)-led language translation platform. It seeks to enable easy access to the internet and digital services in Indian languages, including voice-based access, and help create content in Indian languages. The contribution can be made in four ways — Suno India, Likho India, Bolo India and Dekho India – hearing, writing, speaking and seeing. India is now creating an ever-evolving repository of data, training and benchmarking datasets, open models, tools and technologies. I know two brilliant engineers, Kiran Raju and Chandrasekhar Thota, working in AI, and learned the latest in the field from them. And, of course, my son Amol has been there, unraveling the new world to me as it unfolds. 

Kiran studied computer science at Purdue University and later, at Carnegie Mellon University. He founded Grene Robotics (GR) in India, a technology R&D company inspired by nature’s efficient and intelligent design, in 2009. Cosmic intelligence is the supreme intelligence, and the best of engineering exists in nature. The pursuit is to decipher and apply it on purpose. Kiran is developing digital twins wherein your machines, businesses, and even the body are digitally maintained as an AI system so that what is going on wrong can be captured and corrected even before it happens. The immense insurance industry, trillions of dollars worldwide, has been groping in the dark. But with the advent of AI, risks will be foreseen, adjusted, and even mitigated. 

 Chandrasekhar is Vice President and Head of Engineering at Google in Silicon Valley. His passion is Maps. He has built layers of intelligence upon locations by merely looking at them. So, when you arrive in a particular area, it is not simply to know where the restaurant is, but where hot South Indian food is available and on happy hour rates. He has been doing this work that people enjoy on their mobile phones, and businesses no longer need to be at prime locations. They can be located even in the interiors, saving operational costs and transferring the cost advantage to customers. Mapping is now entering the healthcare industry. What a patient needs will be linked to the best service, and like you don’t go to a “five-star hotel” when hungry, you can engage the best provider directly.  

At the root of all these developments is understanding the grammar that drives a language — knowing the seed, not by plucking the fruit and cutting it open, but by the tree’s seed before it is sown in the soil. The Tower of Babel was a symbol of arrogance, denying the reality of the mortal world; AI would end all arrogance and the ignorance that it entails. The point is no more that you don’t know about something; the fact is, what you will do about it – who are you at the end of the day? The era of deception, falsehood, and pretensions will end soon. After dawn breaks out, even the brightest stars are seen no more. Once the language barrier is overcome, knowledge will flow like water and air – without boundaries, channels and user charges. The idea of AI is not to reach heaven up there. It is about creating heaven right here. 

The New Year 2024 begins on a positive note. The Indian economy is doing well, and people generally enjoy good times, if not great. There is no distress or despair in the air except for some intransigent pessimists who are perhaps blind to everything good. For me, the construction of Ram Mandir is historically significant. My idea of modern India was articulated when I read India: A Wounded Civilization, written by Sir V. S. Naipaul and published in 1977.  How can a wounded civilisation grow? Should it not heal first?

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001, the grandparents of Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, from both his mother’s and father’s sides, went to Trinidad to work as indentured labourers in sugarcane plantations set up there by the British. Landless brahmins from eastern Uttar Pradesh, blighted after the Great Famine of 1876-78, saw no prospects for their future generations in India. Who brought that famine? Invaders and traders turned rulers who were more interested in creating monuments and growing commodities like opium and indigo for export instead of food for the people.   

Naipaul came to India for the first time in the early sixties and found it a terrible place to live. He later published An Area of Darkness, conveying his disillusionment with the country of his forefathers, marked with poverty, people defecating in the open, all sorts of compromises, and corruption. The wise man could see the reason for this decadence in the failure of the society’s higher sections to defend their country and traditions. 

Of all its squalor and human decay, its eruptions of butchery, India produced so many people of grace and beauty, ruled by elaborate courtesy. Producing too much life denied the value of life, yet it permitted a unique human development for so many. Nowhere were people so heightened, rounded and individualistic; nowhere did they offer themselves so thoroughly and with such assurance. . . The colonial mimicry is an exceptional mimicry of an old country without a native aristocracy for a thousand years who have learned to make room for outsiders, but only at the top. The mimicry changes and the inner world remains constant: this is the secret of survival. 

I made this inner world my constant mantra in life. Later, when Dr APJ Abdul Kalam picked me to work with him, I became an author by helping him write his speeches and his autobiography Wings of Fire and five other books. One of these books was Guiding Souls: Dialogue on the Purpose of Life, published in 2005. My publisher, Piyush Kumar, took me to Sir Naipaul on a visit to Delhi. I was stunned by his persona – tall, handsome, erudite. It was the first time I met a Nobel Laureate. I was overwhelmed. 

He wrote a message for the book: “This book demonstrates a wise and much loved President, two attributes which do not always go together.” He said that what is good for you is not usually liked. And this is the biggest problem with people: they dislike being told about their faults. Sir Naipaul affectionately held my hand and said, “Keep writing, young man. Like music, writing comes with practice.” I took his advice to heart. This year, I published my 25^th book. When the grandchild of indentured labourers forced to flee their motherland to survive became a world-renowned English author, why must I not write?  

India stands tall in the international community in the second decade of the 21st century.  Persons of Indian origin are leading some of the world’s best companies – Microsoft, Alphabet, IBM, Adobe – and are also in prominent positions like the chief of the World Bank, the Vice President of the United States, and the Prime Minister of the UK. This signifies three facts – 

1. Indians have emerged from the mimicry they played for survival and are now proud of themselves. 
2. India is a robust democracy, and people change governments without disruption and chaos. 
3. Most importantly, the world has recognised the quality of the Indian mind. 

I am most fortunate to have survived my health issues to see a grand Ram Mandir coming up. And a grand mosque, perhaps the biggest in the world, will also be there soon. When I visited Ayodhya, ironically a mofussil little town in district Faizabad, in 2018, I could see the helplessness of a wounded civilisation. In extolled Varanasi, the narrow passage to the Kashi Vishwanath temple was encroached upon by petty shopkeepers and littered. There were no invaders or traders now, so who kept the pilgrim places in such a deplorable state? Those ruling after independence had a different agenda, which did not give value to the revival of the culture that suffered 1000 years of onslaught.

Undoubtedly, India has begun reclaiming its lost glory by introducing Vedic studies in education, bringing back stolen artefacts, re-erecting destroyed monuments, and creating roads and infrastructure around long-neglected pilgrim centres of great history behind them. The state of sports is a reliable indicator of the people of any country. Indian athletes are now bagging their best-ever tally of medals. Indian girls making their mark over their competitors from other nations are tell-tale signs of the rise of Indian people. It is no wonder the Olympic Games will come to India in the 2030s! 

Why do nations rise and fall? From a civilisational perspective, whenever and wherever vested interests grab power, they must eventually lose it. The more those who rule are against the spirit of the people, the more misery people suffer, but the rulers are ultimately destroyed. India’s rise as a world power coincides with the downturn of China and the United States. Alienation of the governments with their people is the reason in both cases. All this makes India’s further rise inevitable and necessary for world stability. This was indeed foreseen by Sri Aurobindo, who said on India gaining independence in 1947, “We do not belong to past dawns but to the noons of the future.” (CWSA, Vol. 19, p. 10).

Sir Naipaul died in 2018 at the age of 85. My short meeting with him remains one of the rare, fond moments like those we all carry in our hearts – insignificant for others but very precious to the soul. From that day, I took Sir Naipaul as my writing guru, as you always need someone great to emulate. Sir Naipaul’s books are remarkable for their instant readability. He created distinct, intelligible sentences and organised them into coherent paragraphs. Only through the mastery of language and clarity of expression can an author convince readers to believe in the narrative.

Venerated as a ‘literary eye’, Sir Naipaul could see during his travels not only the past of the people but also their future wherever he went. So, what do I see now? The unequal world as it stands is based on falsehood and deceit. What is now seen is a transition from a bad past based on military power, oil, and unfair trade and finance by those in power to an era of peace and an equitable world. AI is rising as an ‘invisible hand’ once seen by Adam Smith in his famous work, The Wealth of Nations. AI will take the falsehood and fraud out of the system, and abundance will be the order of the day. Everyone will eventually receive the actual value of their labour. 

Environmental concerns will encourage new livelihoods and digital money opportunities for new businesses. India must patiently wait and prepare its younger generation to reap the rewards. Ensure nutrition, education, and safety for children, and they will grow to take the world forward. In A Bend in the River, Sir Naipaul writes, “After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.” Why not have a good idea about ourselves and live with the mind without fear and heads held high, as Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore wished for us? 

One of my cherished childhood memories is singing before the image of Mother Durga created on the wall using cow dung, called Sanjhi, in our home every year during Navratri. This was not done in every house in our locality and many children would visit our home out of curiosity and of course, for the prasad, that would be distributed by my mother after the half hour ceremony, during the nine-day period in October-November every year.  

I come from the Gaur Brahmana community in Western Uttar Pradesh. My ancestors are believed to come from the Gaur Pradesh of Bengal, an ancient kingdom in the modern-day Malda district, and were said to have been invited by King Parikshit, the son of Abhimanyu and Uttara, and the grandson of Arjuna. He was the successor of Yudhishthira to the throne of Hastinapur and was to perform a particular yajna, which would not be considered complete without these exalted Brahmanas. 

After the yajna was concluded, the king requested them to settle and granted them land. Millennia have passed but Gaur Brahmanas continue to worship Mother Durga as they were doing in Bengal. My father would fast during Navratri and recite the Devi Mahatmya every day. On the eighth day, he would perform a yajna officiated by a priest. The next morning, children from the neighborhood were fed by my mother and grandmother. My brother Salil Tiwari continues this tradition.  

As a child, although I sat through the recitation of Durga Saptashati, I could never capture the content. When I read it later, I found the account of Mother Durga and Kali killing demons rather gory and wondered what merit reciting all this violence would incur. Aware of the fact that mine is perhaps the last generation who is aware of our traditions and scriptures in their original forms, I have decided to dive deep into the Devi Mahatmyam, part of the Markandeya Purana. The 700 shlokas in the chapters 81-93 give this text the name Durga Saptashati.

Two unlucky men, a dispossessed king Surath and a destitute merchant Samadhi, meet in a forest. They are deeply disappointed, but not disillusioned. They approach a sage for help. Both are highly egoistical, brimming with self-pity. The sage sees that their hurt sense of I-ness and my-ness was tormenting them. Their misery would end if they were turned towards the Divine. So, the sage engages them by telling the three charitras, episodes of the exploits of the Supreme Shakti and her emanations.

In the first episode of chapter one, Devi is in her Maha Maya form. Demonic twins Madhu-Kaitabh are obstructing Lord Brahma during the creation of the cosmos. Lord Brahma prays to Vishnu who is in deep sleep. Maha Maya emerges out of Vishnu and kills the demons.  

The second episode of the three chapters presents the creation of a great effulgence, as Devi, the feminine form of all the gods. The world was under attack by the shape-shifting Mahishasura, a demon who uses deception to disarm his opponents. Devi, in the form of Chandika, riding a lion, slayed the demon hiding in the form of a buffalo.

In the final episode of nine chapters, the demons, Shumbha and Nishumbha conquer heaven. On the request of the expelled gods, Devi Parvati takes the form of Ambika. In the battle with Dhumralochan, Chanda, Munda and Raktabeej, the lieutenants of demon kings, the seven mothers, appear including Kali. In the iconic battle with Raktabeej, who is reborn every time Durga kills him and his blood falls on the ground, Kali sucks the spilled blood to ensure his end. Nishumbha and his army are defeated by the seven Mothers.

In the final battle against Shumbha, Devi absorbs Kali and the seven mothers and slays the demon as Ambika of eight arms. Devi is venerated as the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe in a hymn, Narayani Stuti. 

Devi gives the merchant and the king her vision after they both perform austerities directed by the sage. The king asks Devi for his lost kingdom, the merchant asks for wisdom, and both are granted. With a promise that she will always destroy the demons and bring peace on Earth, Devi disappears.

Coming to the coded secrets, Surath and Samadhi are the dual nature of the Jivatma – seeking pleasures in the material world, as well as curious to find and return to the Source. Our life on earth is a battle. Each one of us is carrying inside us a battlefield full of helpers and hunters, friends, and enemies. The help will come only from the Creator behind the phenomenon. There are two ways to invoke the Creator – approach the heavenly Father, the spirit Purusha. Another is to approach the mother, Prakriti, right here as the cosmos and the life. Seeking help from the Mother right here is easier and more effective.

Madhu and Kaitabh, honey, and the bee represent our tendency to extract. Mahishasura, the mighty buffalo is our ego. Dhumralochan, smoky eyes, is the illusion of worldly forms. Chanda and Munda are the tendencies of attraction and aversion. Raktabeej represents never-ending desires, like new bodies growing from every drop of blood that falls on the ground. Kali is an emanation of the Devi, and she must wage a relentless war to kill Nishumbha. When I read Devi Mahatmyam with these insights, every shloka made perfect sense.  I can now see the kindest and the most loving Mother in the seemingly terrible form of Kali, protecting my soul in this world from the demonic forces inside and around me. 

Her sword of knowledge severs the head of pride and prejudices, the fearlessness of riding a lion, her long and black hair for nature’s supremacy over any civilizational arrangements, the protruding red tongue, her rajasic nature being conquered by the sattvic nature of the white teeth, unclothed as beyond the covering of Maya, dark as the Unmanifest origin of the manifested creation, continues to exist even when the universe ends. She stands with her foot over Shiva, conveying immortality that dismantles life and puts it back again. The more you mediate on Mother Kali, the deeper goes the meaning of every feature. Of course, Mother as Durga is most splendorous. Her multiple hands giving all that is needed and above all protection. 

Know that beneath this pomp and show, beauty and pleasures, dresses, ornaments, and possessions, you are a helpless body – skull and limbs – aging to eventually die. Slay your ego (I-ness) and attachments (mine-ness) with the knowledge of your and others’ divine origin. Stand before Kali. She is not angry; she is calm. Feel assured of the divine vigilance over human affairs on earth. It is not only during a crisis that the world would be under the complete control of demonic forces; it can happen every day, every living moment. But we can overcome this right here, right now, by slaying our “I-ness” and “mine-ness” and enjoy the bliss of “immortality.”

I recently met Mr. Chandu Thota, Vice President at Google, when he was here in Hyderabad, where he studied at Osmania Engineering College. Chandu played a pioneering role in the development of digital mapping. He worked at Microsoft from 2002 to 2007 on maps and later established his own company Dealmap, which was acquired by Google in 2011. Since then, Chandu has been at Google.

Born and brought up in coastal Andhra Pradesh, Chandu comes from a traditional family where dogmas and rituals are integral parts of life. While we were discussing how the modern generation is becoming superficial about religion and lacks conviction about timeless traditional wisdom, Chandu brought up the example of a map. Moving a stylus from one place to another is so easy on a map. Thousands of miles can be crossed–oceans, mountains, and deserts—in a moment—without even getting up from your chair. Even the thrill of going to faraway locations can be felt, if only on a map. 

So, this is exactly what is happening with the younger generation in the realm of religion. When we spend hours discussing scriptures, theories, enlightenment, and spiritual gurus and their miracles—the Internet is flooded with them—we may not realize it, but it is just like moving the stylus on the map. The confidence with which “gurus” narrate morally superior concepts often deludes the “chelas” into thinking that they have arrived, even though none of them have even started.

Tokenism is the trend. Wearing a mala, tying a thread on the wrist, and even applying a tilak, can never make a difference unless it represents a change in attitude. But merely done as a fashion, this comforting illusion of having “arrived” bleeds out the reasons, motivation, and energy from our ambition to undertake the journey. Some of us may get addicted to the “high” we get from moving the stylus on the map and consequently fritter away a significant part of our lives doing just that—and many may never undertake the actual journey. Chandu casually called it “spiritual turnpikes” but it drove me into reflection and to write this blog.

I was introduced to the word “Turnpike” by Bhooshan Sawant. He lives in North Brunswick, New Jersey. In 2011, I spent a week at his home. Many times, he drove me to New York City and took a toll road to bypass the perennial traffic on the Garden State Parkway. Bhooshan told me that the Turnpike originated in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries when the Parliament allowed the formation of Turnpike trusts to build roads and bridges and collect tolls from the users. Basically, the turnpike is the horizontal bar lowered to block your way and lifted when the tax is paid. 

This later became a practice for the governments to collect taxes from travellers and in India, almost all new roads are created as turnpikes. Similarly, spirituality is taken over by religion and we are conditioned to believe that one must follow some religion to attain spiritual enlightenment. There are organized events, “paid” services, ritualistic performances, and obnoxiously collected subscription models selling spirituality. This is on the supply side. Even more problematic is the demand side.

Hordes of young people are turning into spiritual addicts. Like parrots, they talk indefatigably about how yogis can leave their physical bodies and travel to distant planets or what happens after death. They perceive themselves as spiritually evolved people but their behaviors could not be further off. They are arrogant, absent-minded, irresponsible, undisciplined, and unethical. No wonder the roads are full of rage and people in crowds and on social media are impolite and rude.

What is spirituality? Understanding the basic fact that we are an immortal spirit living in “this body” that grows, decays and eventually dies, is spirituality. The purpose of life is the evolution of this spirit, which means sorting out the bad embedded in us, like dust on a mirror. Each one of us has our demons, the shadow selves. The art of living is about going by our values and bravely confronting these shadows; acknowledging, feeling, and transcending our inconvenient emotions.

All this holds a purpose. By discarding all that is not good, building mutually empathetic and rewarding relationships; resolving problems; and shouldering our responsibilities we not only lead a good life but also create conditions where others can better theirs. However, most of us unconsciously use religion and rituals to distract ourselves from the feelings of guilt, frustration, and inadequacy we do not want to experience, the responsibilities of life we do not want to bear, and the hard work required to resolve the issues we want to escape from.

We pick up phrases like, “Life is suffering”; “Suffering is the nectar that cleanses the soul”; “God tests and strengthens our faith through suffering,” and so on. These are in essence our vain attempts to avoid facing the mirror – to see our faults and fix them. It is a pity and a waste of human life to miss the chance of expanding consciousness and using it to create sensory pleasures and conveniences – no less ludicrous than an astronaut riding a horse. 

My 33 years of tutelage under Dr APJ Abdul Kalam helped me immensely to discern between religion and spirituality. Not that they are exclusive but that they are different and must be understood and practised that way. Armed with this awareness, I keep coming across people who are not seeking but escaping their true selves, and I could recognize myself as one of them, and see this game of using spiritual discussions and practices as a substitute for our transformation instead of a means to support it. 

During my first visit to San Francisco with Dr Kalam in 2007, after he relinquished the presidency, I was given a book by John Welwood entitled, Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships, published at that time. Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist, Welwood coined the term “Spiritual Bypassing” in the early 1980s and I enjoyed discussing it with Dr Kalam on our flight back home. The tendency to use spiritual ideas, discussions, and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks has always been there. Welwood articulated it well now using the familiar term “bypassing.” 

The spiritual journey begins with the realisation that our reality is the immortal spirit present inside our body and not the body itself. It is like “grounding” to our basic existential fact.  Opposite to adorning artefacts – lockets, bracelets, particular dresses – and undertaking retreats, pilgrimages, and attending congregations we can brag about, discovering who we are at our deepest core is a very quiet affair. 

It is a process of gradually removing “onion-like” layers of anything that is neither factually true nor who we are at our core in order to inch closer to the truth or our true selves. Being cognizant of our haughtiness ought to humble us a little, but if we act as though we are pursuing and carrying out all righteous deeds, we are subconsciously creating an alibi to do what is not right. In addition, there are no speed breakers on this slick slope. In the shadow of the light we believe we are heading towards, it is hard to perceive or assess how much misery we might be causing to ourselves and others once we start to believe we are holy, pure, and one with God, and therefore already nearly flawless. Dr Kalam used to caution me before planning out a project that man is indeed a formidable rationalizing machine capable of making even the most irrational things accepted.