Everyone has heard the story of Gautam Buddha who loved his wife, child and the royal home and yet left them in the middle of the night quietly to seek answers to some of the nagging questions about human existence and suffering. After years of reflection, meditation and discussion, he found some answers which over the centuries have turned into a book of religion and a way of life almost. But what keeps me wondering is why he had to leave his happy home to contemplate on matters which were solely intellectual and centred on the praxis of happy spiritual growth. Couldn’t he meditate upon those matters in the comfort of his home by interacting with people around? Do matters philosophical, divine or mystical necessarily conflict with worldly phenomena? If love of life is anathema to our spiritual fulfilment then how can we realise it during our life time? Does the spirit of life flourish only by avoiding the ordeals of real life? Sahir too had doubts. ‘yeh bhog bhi ek tapsaya hai, tum tyag ke mare kya jaano’(love of life is also an ordeal, by running away you won’t ever know it)
Notwithstanding these doubts, we can see that this stereotype of loving and leaving the real world has become a very popular modus operandi in visionary pursuits? The example of Buddha and others have set a template for all those who wish to seek answers to some deep, emotive, psychic urges of man. In literature and in real life there are many who have used this stratagem – of first experiencing riches and then giving them up for finding alternative modes of happiness or some inner peace or self-awareness. The trigger in each case may be different but they all left their thriving life behind and went into a stint of deprivation and seclusion.
The most recent imitation of this mode of discovery is the much talked about book ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’. The monk is a famous lawyer, deals only with high-worth clients, makes his millions and buys luxuries like a huge mansion, a private jet and a Ferrari of course. He loves his success so much that he forgets about his wife and family and finally works himself to an on-job heart attack. And that is when the cookie crumbles for him. He leaves everything materialistic behind and heads for the Himalayas where he becomes a monk and learns the seven principles of a meaningful and happy life. Doesn’t it read like the story of a modern day Buddha?
On a much smaller scale, R.K. Narayan’s story ‘Selvi’ narrates the story of a humble singer who rises to eminence and lives a life of affluence in a huge colonial house sprawling over several acres. Then one day, when her mother dies, she comes to realise the futility of life of greed and alienation that she had been leading and decides instantly to renounce it and go back to her modest dwellings to sing for her old poor folks.
The story of ‘back to basics’ is best illustrated by another famous novel ‘The Strange Case of Billy Biswas’. Billy has US-education, wealth, status and all the accoutrement of modernity with a highly sophisticated and an outgoing wife. But his heart is somewhere else. With discontent and restlessness overtaking him, he is at odds with the superficial and pompous lifestyle of the urban upper classes. So one day, on a personal voyage of self-discovery, he leaves everybody and loses himself in the jungles of Maikala hills and becomes a part of a primitive tribe, living an elementary life completely in sync with nature. There, he discovers the essence of life as he meets and marries a tribal girl. In that community he finds love, mutual co-existence and meaning of life, not the politics of dominance or the materiality of opulence or the shallow spirituality of civilised world.
The act of renunciation is not particular to Hindus or Buddhists; it is equally rampant in Islamic culture where faqiri or roving mendicancy or austere lifestyle is considered an essential condition for imbibing the spirit of Sufism. Tarq-e-duniya is not necessarily running away to jungles, but keeping a distance from the worldly power and pelf. Spiritual growth demands intense focus and no material distraction. Ashfaq Ahmed’s ‘Manchale ka Sauda’, available both as a novel and a drama series, presents the transformation of a rich industrialist, owner of a swanky Bentley and a house with French windows, who gives up on all these things and turns into a Sufi wiseman. He wanders in the wilderness and rests in the remote ruins to find peace for his inner tumult. His mentors on his way to Sufi enlightenment are also humble, lowly people such as a shepherd, a cobbler, a road cleaner and a postman with little or no worldly possessions.
This paradigm of first loving the world and then dumping it is not a staple of the fictional world alone; it is as much popular with some individuals in contemporary world. We have numerous stories of people in high places who just abandoned their riches and turned to something that gave them spiritual excitement. Om Swami is a real-life monk who sold his 150-crore software corporation having several international offices, deleted his email account, went into the fold of a Naga sadhu and then marched straight into the Himalayas where he meditated for 18 months. After taking on the robe of a sanyasi, he parked himself in a distant corner of Himachal Pradesh from where he writes books and lives off their meagre income. Another example is a Gujrati millionaire, Bhanwarlal Doshi, who made headlines a few years ago, because he left his plastic manufacturing business of 600 crores and became a Jain muni. Interesting facts about his initiation are: the ceremony lasted three days and was attended by thousands of people, many of whom were lodged in 500 hotel rooms booked especially for the event.
The question arises whether spiritual quest or the urge for the sublime happens only after the body has satiated itself of the worldly needs and other physical pleasures? Can this disillusionment happen before one is done with the world? What is primary to life – this world or the spiritual well-being? We can easily say both, but know that, all cannot afford both. For many, the burden of a daily grind is too much to afford any higher aspirations. Matters spirituals can be a luxury for some. Faiz drops a hint.
Duniya ne teri yaad se begaana kar diya
Tujh se bhi dil-fareb hain gham rozgar ke
(The world has made me indifferent to You, its day-to-day agonies have much greater pull)
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