We are indebted to many. Most of them are not with us now;
they may be in some heaven, elsewhere or nowhere. Yes, I am referring to our
ancestors. We discussed earlier in this series that we must be grateful to them
for having done much for us, the fruits whereof we are enjoying today. We also
discussed about making serious efforts for rectifying any errors they might
have committed, which could have become the cause of sufferings of many. And,
that suffering may be persisting even today. Generally, most of the social
evils had their roots in the past.
We make many mistakes in understanding our present. We make
many more mistakes in understanding our past. Sometimes we are unduly proud of
our past and at other times we blame it for not so happy conditions we live in.
If we contemplate over the noblest thoughts and great words of wisdom spoken by
our ancestors, we find that such words and thoughts were the outcome of
untiring efforts of our ancestors of learning from their past. Is it not true
that a few from them (our ancestors) detached themselves from their past,
present and future and made rigorous attempts to explore the truth that
sustained life? Once the truth became known to them, they passed it on to the
generation next.
We have been told that they made several sacrifices and
underwent rigorous penance (tapa) to purify themselves to attain a state
that enabled them to know the truth.
Let us think of a word (having Sanskrit origin); Prayashchit.
Words in English language close to this word are ‘atonement’ and ‘penance’. The
word, prayashchit does not convey passive meanings like ‘regret’ or
‘remorse’. It means a process of feeling
bad about something done that could have been avoided, feeling ashamed of
having done it and, then, punishing oneself so that the error is never repeated
again. The self-punishment is for attaining a state where the thought of
committing the error does not recur, one’s conduct becomes free from it and no
words are ever uttered, which become a cause of recurrence of the error.
Prayashchit has no sense unless it precedes a realization of some error
of the past. A question that may be raised is, “How do we become responsible
for the errors committed by our ancestors?” There is no doubt that if we do not
identify ourselves with our ancestors from whom we inherit many things that
make our life easier and perhaps, even meaningful to quite an extent, we do not
become directly responsible for their errors. However, it may be somewhat
childish to think about it in that in that way. I will explain it with a real
life example in the following paragraph.
We are aware about the condition of women the world over. But,
I will discuss about it only in Indian context of which I may have a better
understanding. Maybe, not in some very distant past, due to circumstance
prevailing then, a tradition of not permitting women to take part in many
affairs of life was seeded. That means women were excluded from many functions
that a civilized society performed. Women were asked to take care of their
household responsibilities, the men in their families and their children. This
tradition got settled deeper and deeper, generations after generation, till the
women got transformed into members of the society who had no temperament,
ability and intention to carry out any of the other important functions of the
society, except for looking after their families. What might have had started as
some kind of circumstantial necessity to preserve social order against invaders
and their tyrannical rule, got converted into systematic injustice to the half
of the population of India.
True, we were not there when this tradition was seeded, but,
are we (the men) of a free democratic country not biased toward women in many
ways? If we are, then, we are definitely a party to a social injustice, almost
a kind of crime that is being committed on Indian women. Do we realize our
error? Are we ashamed of it? Are we punishing ourselves by going against the
social norms and traditions that consider women as not equal to men? Are we
ready to bear all that our families, our communities and our societies would do
to us if we stand, tall and erect, against the ways our society treats women?
Tapa or Prayashchit is not always standing on one leg under the scorching sun
with folded hands, it is also being fully committed to the ‘practical truth’,
come what may.
If I wrote something about women in India, I did it because I
can do something for India that I know a little about and I live there. People
from other parts of the world may also know what all are not consistent with
the practical truth in their surroundings. They alone have the opportunity and
ability to solve their problems. I have talked about only one out of the many man-made
disparities, which is between man and women. There are many such disparities;
of classes, of castes, of religions, of races, of much needed opportunity for keeping
one’s body and soul together, of opportunities to grow physically and spiritually,
and so on and so forth.
The need of fierce prayashchit has come upon
the modern man. It has come upon him traditionally, as a sacred duty, before he
passes his wisdom to the next generation. This kind of purification is also a
part of the spiritual process.
[This series is being written and presented by Promod Kumar
Sharma, the author of “Mahatma A Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” &
“In Search of Our Wonderful Words”. This series is being published only on this
site.]
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