By tatsatpanda@rediffmail.com

Dear Brothers and Sisters, May peace, mercy and blessings of Almighty God be upon you.

Our beliefs, actions, behavior, preferences etc. define us. Who are we, if we discard these? Am I only that, of which, I have knowledge? If I am beyond knowledge, then I can never 'know' who I am! Rene Descartes has rightly said, “I think, therefore I am”. Now, if I don't think, how do I know  if I am? What is the relation between thinking and knowledge, between knowledge and reality? These questions have bugged me. I have questioned everything that I believe. I have questioned everything that I practice. Had many a sleepless night, had to search frantically for the source – the source of all things, ideas, concepts etc.

To reach this source, I had to understand one thing, EVERY river HAS a source. It flows from its source to its destination. The river of my life, too has a source and a destination. I have to walk along the bank of the river, along the curvy twisted path, ridden with rocks, pebbles, flowers and even dangerous crevices and mountains, to reach that source. Before I understand my life, I have to understand the one who is living it – me. I am still along the bank, with only God as my guide, for it is my life, and no one else can walk along the bank of my life. I am still facing some thorny bushes, some beautiful meadows, but I am getting used to it. Knowing that these are only along the bank, the real thing is at the source. I keep forgetting, i keep remembering. I err and I rectify. Its a part of this journey that I describe before you, that I want to share with you; for you too are along your bank and facing what I have faced. May God will that my writing inspires you and helps you – for it is only He who helps, we only THINK that we help.

My name is Tatsat, and I am from India. In the following pages, I describe my journey. How it has changed the way I think and live.

Background

I was born into a Hindu family, brought up, of course in the Hindu way, that is worshiping idols and people, called Gurus (spiritual teachers). My actual journey began with my adolescence. At 11, I was living in an 'ashram' or a spiritual hermitage, to be under the guidance of my Guru (spiritual teacher). In Hinduism, Guru is the one who can guide man to God. Without a Guru you are doomed. Every man has the potential to become God, not in the sense that he becomes another God, but that he has the potential to merge his soul with the soul of the Almighty. On doing this, though the man lives in a body of a human, he has the consciousness of God himself. He can do anything and is an ideal for everyone. Such a state is called enlightenment or self-realization. To achieve this state one needs guidance. The guide must mean the most to you. He should mean more than you yourself, because at times, when there are destructive tendencies in you, that prevent you from growth, your guide may hurt you to awaken you so that you may grow. The guide can't do this without your complete and absolute trust in him. This guide is called a Guru (spiritual teacher). Naturally, to attain supreme peace, I wanted to complete this journey. So, I had become a disciple of some Swami from Bihar in India. Basically, what appealed to me the most was that I would be very peaceful and nothing would hurt me, if I become self-realized. So I was in this 'ashram' or a spiritual hermitage to receive guidance from my Guru. After having stayed about two years, approaching adolescence, I left the Ashram. Reasons were many – I couldn't have as much fun as I could before, i.e., my mischiefs were no longer tolerated. This was because my Guru was being very strict with me and making me live with another person, whom he had appointed my disciplinarian. He would always point out my mistakes and scold me. He would make me work very hard. Wake me up everyday at 4:00am in the morning. Then we would have to shower in icy cold water, followed by a chants class, then some karate. Then cleaning the hermitage, then work, eat and work till evening. All this was fine, I was a kid, I loved the work – though I wouldn't say that I enjoyed the chilled water bath! The path to self realization was that of sannyas. Sannyas is a state when, in order to search for the truth, you cut off all relationship with all that you love in order to be able to look for the truth objectively. What that means to most traditional Hindus is that you got to sever ties with your family and treat them as strangers, lead a life without employment, maintain celibacy and to wear orange robes. I had decided to enter into sannyas, so I was already treating my mother and brother who visited the ashram frequently (about twice a year) as strangers. One day, my Guru asked me to treat my mother with rudeness. I didn't understand that. Why did I have to treat her badly? She never stopped me from doing what I wanted. She always cared for me. She allowed me to come and live in the ashram, when I was just 11, she trusted my Guru so much. Then why? Perhaps, to test how detached I am from her, I thought. So, when I met her, I treated her in a very cold and cruel manner, saying that she should forget that she has two sons, now she has only one. She left my room in tears, I was in tears as well. I had hurt the one person who loved me and cared for me. Who had given me birth. Since then, I started feeling uncomfortable. To top it all my Guru arranged for that man to be my disciplinarian and that gave me a hell of a time. I couldn't do a thing without getting scolded. And I was doing all this discontinuing my education. This my mom was worried about, so she asked my Guru if she could take me back to educate me. My Guru said that education is very much needed and that he can't keep me if my mom willed so and if I consented. On being asked of my view on the matter, I told him that I feel that education is important for me, and that I intended to leave, get educated and then come back to the hermitage; though my real intention was to get the hell out of that place!

My Search begins

Mom took me home. I reached adolescence. This was when I began searching for truth; for that one thing that will remain with me, no matter what. I can't put it on paper. It wasn't an idea that someone in the hermitage had put into me. I had never read anything about it either. It was simply a thirst, a deep hole within me that was sucking me deeper. It was like a relentless question mark that seemed never to die down no matter what answers I, books or others provide. I was searching, not knowing what I was searching for. I just felt that something is wrong somewhere, I just couldn't tell. So I started reading. I began with the books of a man called Osho. He was a brilliant orator. His discourses were transcribed and compiled into books. I began reading my first book on spirituality, I remember, 'The Center of the Cyclone'. Osho was a magnificent journey for me. He was not alive then, he died in 1990, and I was reading his book at about 1997-98, I was 15 then. Once I began reading, it became my passion. I preferred purchasing books over clothes, video games, sports accessories and all that boys of my age would be interested in. I couldn't afford it all, because of financial constraints in which my family lived. I was purchasing cheap editions of the books and slowly but steadily, my library grew. Before I knew, I had read about 150-200 books of Osho. The thing that I best liked about him was that he made me go through almost every noticeable religious philosophy in the world. I read about Zen, Taoism, Sufism, Hinduism,  Christianity and also about diverse philosophies taught by teachers like J. Krishnamurti, Bertrand Russell, George Gurdjieff, Freud and group and many others. Basically he gave me a taste of all these things, the knowledge of which, later helped me to carry out my individual research. He ingrained one thing in me, never to accept any authority, never to blindly follow anything, never to go by words or promises, but by my own experience. At this point, I felt that my growth as a person was more likely in the world of a normal man, than in the world of sannyas. Hence, I decided not to go back to the ashram. I continued reading Osho and also started doing my individual research. I read the works of Paramahamsa Yogananda, of Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, J. Krishnamurti, U.G. Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, Swami Sivananda, Swami Satyananda (my Guru's Guru), Bertrand Russell, Imam Ghazali and even Ayn Rand. There were many more like Sri sri Ravishankar, Swami Kriyananda etc. I also took time studying human psychology and developmental psychology. I can't just mention every single one I read. Just to tell you, my collection was really a library, but my major library was now on the computer (we could afford one now), where I have thousands of books and works and articles from different sources. It was an addiction and I wanted to know who had the truth. How could I satisfy this thirst in me, this question mark in me? I would like to mention one very important thing here. I wasn't just reading them and just nodding my head along. No, a big NO! That would make my study a simple scholastic comparison of the various doctrines. When reading Osho, I would actually follow what he taught. Amazingly he never asked or urged one to indulge in sex, the one thing that most will accuse you of if you said you followed Osho. Osho's followers did that, but he didn't advocate it. All he said was, 'do not to put a facade of being an angel, when in actuality the devil reigns supreme in you'. So, though I followed Osho, it didn't mean that I was running around women. Also, I was never associated with his organization, the Osho Commune International. I visited it once, but I associated more with him and his teachings. The reason I took time explaining this was that, this was the case with every teacher and philosophy I studied. I actually followed it assuming the teacher/philosophy is correct. When, I don't believe in a certain doctrine, I wouldn't be in the right mindset for the doctrine to help me. Without belief, the study of a doctrine would be only a scholastic endeavor and not a sincere quest to the unknown. I followed every doctrine till I could, till my intelligence tolerated it. When, I found loopholes, I would leave. Its not that simple, I have taken time to explain this later in this article. Honestly, I don't believe that only a scholastic evaluation would have taken me anywhere. It is because I dared to follow every teaching that came my way, that I could get to the root of things. I never associated myself with any organization of any teacher, except that of my Guru, whose hermitage I lived in for two years. But that was prior to all this mess.

I come to Islam

Yes, it was a mess. And a messy one at that! I just couldn't figure out what to do. Who do I know is with the absolute truth? Every doctrine had a flaw. In course of time the mess in the best of doctrines became apparent to me. To tell you the truth, I follow everything very passionately and diligently, so the time it took to squeeze the truth out was much lesser than that you would normally expect. I just didn't know  what to do! I just decided to relax and continued with my life. I joined a college (graduate school) to do my graduation in a different city – Bangalore. Here I met a girl, a Muslim. I was interested in her and we developed a good friendship. Friendship turned to love. But to stay together, and be socially accepted, was impossible because the Indian society doesn't tolerate a Hindu marrying a Muslim. We were not yet graduates but when we loved each other seriously, we had to contemplate on our relationship. The only way was either my converting to Islam, or she becoming a Hindu. I wasn't a practicing Hindu. I didn't care a damn about being a Hindu. I was practicing Taoism then. So, I decided that I will study Islam, what if it is the one I was searching for? I would get all that I wanted. I had never studied it before, I had studied only sufism and thought Islam to be too ritualistic. Dropping my prejudice, I began studying some preliminary books on Islam and I really liked the doctrine. I really liked that God is always there within reach. I read of the miracles in the Quran. That the Quran is the book of God. I decided to follow it (Islam). I already told you that I never believe in scholastic study. I feel it is too superficial and can never take you to the depth of things. I was strict practicing muslim. Not missing a single prayer of the day. I even prayed the tahajjud prayer everyday. Then, just one fine day, I felt it all wrong. The practices that I indulged myself in, in spite of all difficulties were not in the Quran. Then, I came to know of the hadith. The preliminary books on the Quran, that I had read, gave a very different picture to what reality turned out to be. The trouble actually began, when I read the description of the so called 'wudhu' or abulation before Salat. The Quran mentions in no uncertain terms, the process of Wudhu; but our practices were different from that of the Quran. Now, the hang of the matter was, I was largely bowled over by the 'scientific truths in the Quran' propaganda. I loved to think of the amazing scientific truths described in the Quran, when no man could have imagined them. Now, these daees or 'missionaries of Islam', always approached the non-muslim, with the Quran. They always tried to 'prove' the divinity of the Quran by bringing to notice, the scientific miracles in the Quran. They never brought forth the Hadith. All arguments were based on the Quran, all other ideologies were proved wrong by comparing with the Quran – for example, the doctrines of Christianity were proved illogical in comparing the Bible with the Quran. They never dared to compare the Bible with the Hadith! Islam was shown to be superior to all other religions, based on the Quran. Ironically, in practice, it was hadith, hadith and only hadith – the Sunnah of the Prophet, is actually derived from the hadith the describe his actions. Why this double standard? If you really follow the hadith, then why don't you open it to criticism when debating with non-muslims? This bothered me. I began a systematic study of my religion – yes Islam was now my religion, because I believed in it. I studied in detail the science of Hadith. During this research I came across the free-minds.org website and also the submission.org website. Actually the way I came into contact with these sites was interesting. I was studying the science of Hadith, both from the Internet and books. One book I was reading was 'ulum al Quran' or 'the sciences of the Quran. This book was dealing with the structure of the Quran and  the rules for tafseer (Quranic commentary), its methodology etc. In one section, it criticized and refuted the claims of a group called the 'ahl-al-Quran' or people who follow only the Quran, a movement, the author alleged started by someone by the name Charwaki. This fascinated me, for, being the kind of person I am, and having the kind of exposure I have had (with the study of so many doctrines and philosophies), I really found it hard to accept the logic of this hadith thing. I never accept any human authority. The only authority that can reign over me is that of reason. If what some author states convinced me, then no matter who the author was, I would agree. If it didn't, nothing could make me agree. So, even though I read the work of many a great scholars of Islam (maulanas and muftis, the Ulema), I wasn't buying their idea of hadith. Nevertheless I was not rejecting the hadith. I was still searching. So, this Quran only thing fascinated me. I looked for this 'charwaki' guy on the net. Nothing much, only that which I had read. So I directly gave 'Quran only muslims' in my google search and I ended up visiting submission.org and free-minds.org. I even wrote to freeminds that, though I appreciated their work, I wasn't convinced. By nature, I never reject anything outright. I followed the Quran alone for a while.

Sick of 'religion'

I continued with my search for sense in the hadith and was left disappointed. I was now sick of religion. I was out of it, lock stock and barrel, hook line and sinker. I left Islam even though, my relationship with my girlfriend ended up in rough waters. I could never accept a religion for her. NO WAY! I would accept only that which convinced me of the truth. I became sick of the very idea of belief. I thought that man is trapped in religion and philosophy because he can't survive only with facts. Why can't I live just with facts? Why do I need to believe at all? Whether it is belief in Islam or Buddhism, whether it is belief in man or God, is immaterial, because belief itself is unnecessary. It was at this juncture that my girlfriend wanted to convince me back to Islam that she was talking of the Quran. I asked her, “Hindus believe the Gita is from God, Christians believe the Bible is from God and you believe the Quran is from God. What difference does it make? All of you are only believing. None of you KNOW the truth.” To which she said, “Yes, I know only one truth, that the Quran is the word of God.” I said, “Yes, but if you KNOW, then where is the need of belief? Belief means that you don't KNOW. It is a poor substitute to KNOWING. If you KNOW that the Quran is God’s word, then you can't believe in it. Do you believe that it is day outside or do you KNOW that it is day outside? If I already know, then belief is not needed. I want to KNOW and not believe.” She couldn't answer, she would only cry. She loved me so much that she couldn't see me burning in hell by rejecting God's words. That was her only concern. She didn't want me to stay with her, nearly as much as she wanted me to stay in Islam, because according to her belief, I would burn in hell – and she couldn't bear that. Though, I am very emotional, I don't let emotions guide me. Though it hurt, I stayed away from Islam. I had encountered many things by now. I had read articles by atheists and their ideas, I had also visited faithfreedom.org and answering-islam.org – sites that point out contradictions in the Quran and prove that Quran is not God's words. I read all of it. I could easily crumble the entire atheist structure and their arguments. I found them stupid and narrow. I was just hanging in there, with all those questions and confusion.

The Jigsaw solved

Suddenly, one fine day, EUREKA! Yes, I felt the clouds lifting and clarity emerging. I had been in and out of Islam time and again. No doctrine had ever satisfied me. That was because, I had looked at the wrong sources and looked at them in a wrong way, even the Quran. I clearly remember the thought that brought about this nice day. It was a holiday but I got up early, did some martial arts practice, some tai chi, then made myself a cup of tea (I was living my sister's apartment), was enjoying the tea on the terrace with a beautiful morning's panoramic landscape before my eyes. I was simply enjoying my tea! Like a movie running fast-forward, I was simply contemplating it all. Then a thought came from nowhere. “Is it the Muslims who ask us to 'believe' or is it the Quran?” I had read the Quran about 8-9 times (in English of course). I couldn't recollect a single verse in which the Quran asks a non-believer to believe in the Quran – surprised? Well, so was I. I saw a strange pattern emerging. The correct approach to the Quran was building up. I spent the whole day going through the Quran. Slowly but surely my faith strengthened. I was no longer 'believing', yet I was a believer. How? Can't make it out? Well, I will explain it shortly. All this while, I had been approaching religion the wrong way. I had been approaching the Quran the wrong way. Clarity permeated every aspect of my life. No, it didn't make me perfect – it only made me aware of my imperfections and made me become tolerant towards them. I am at peace, I am in Salam, by the Grace of God Almighty. I can never be grateful enough to God Almighty who has guided me through the maze that I actually managed to pass through! I am always thankful to Him, for without Mercy from the Most Merciful, the Raheem, I would surely have perished or doomed to ignorance. I have my own flaws and craziness, but now, I know something. That something, I feel is wisdom. It is the cornerstone of my life. It is something inexpressible, something God gave me as a mercy from Him. I am forever thankful to Him, the Rehman, the Raheem.

Why did I leave the other doctrines?

What pattern did I see emerging from the Quran?

How was the Quran different from the other religious systems?

All this and more in the sequel of this article –

The Quran and Me, part II

The reason why I decided for a sequel was to compartmentalize the content. This one, as you have seen, deals purely with my search – a short autobiographical sketch. The sequel would deal with more general issues. Thanks for the patience.

I thank God Almighty for enabling me to write this article, and may He guide me and make be capable enough to complete the sequel as well. I pray to Him, that this article may help those who read it in some way or the other; for it is not in my capacity to help anyone in anyway – I can do only that which God inspires me to do, fitting into His larger plan, maybe (if He wills). Whether this article helps you or not, is entirely His will. So, please take time to thank Him.