Unmindful
of the crowd and unperturbed by the uncertainty of future, as I stood at the
gates of the Kingdom of God, the years gone by went flashing before my
eyes. Unlike the attention and privileges that I enjoyed as a bureaucrat back
on the Earth, nobody seemed affected by my presence here.
While
I waited for my turn for a face-to-face with God, the calmness on my face belied
the burning desire to get into a conversation with him. And though it is said
that soul is a ‘pure energy’ devoid of earthly desires, mine was particularly
fueled by an agenda. I was thinking of a perfect way to greet him. I was
thinking if I would be given an opportunity to present my case and be heard. I was
thinking of all the unanswered questions that had troubled me in my lifetime.
“Oh!
If only the world was a fair place to live!”
Inspite
of looking incessantly at the long queue before the Almighty, my eyes were wary
of closing themselves in some rest. The love of the parents, the care of the
siblings, the naughtiness of the early years of friendship, the song of the
beloved, the dance of passion, the patriotism for the nation and the intention
and struggle to contribute to the society flooded my heart and drenched my
soul. I felt lonely like a shore which was being touched by the waves of these
memories, sometimes rushing in and sometimes, retreating.
I
could barely collect myself when a roaring voice said; “Next!” and I found
myself presented before the God himself. Without waiting for someone to
introduce me, I said, “Ms XYZ, a bureaucrat, posted in…No No No ! Really
Sorry..”
“Ms
XYZ, Lord ! I stand before you as Me; without pretentions,
without assumptions!”
“But you are certainly not without questions,
my child!”, he said in a half-smile peculiar of Gods.
“Hordes
of them, indeed! You have been quite unfair to me a lot of times. And I am here
to recount my story of struggle and dejection..”, I paused but hesitantly
continued, “..but not without exerting you to implement some of my
recommendations to the real world.” Obviously, I couldn’t part with my
habit of pushing something of my own interest implicitly amongst all the matter
that interested my boss. Bureaucracy had taught that beautifully to me.
In
his enchanting smile and sparkling eyes, I read the permission of continuation of
my speech.
“Lord!
It is an excruciating experience to find your most beautiful creation seeped in
corruption and devoid of morality. It is even more disheartening to live
through harassment that one faces at being honest. If only you could deprive
humans of one particular characteristic, the world would be a much simpler
place.”
“And
what is that, my child?”, God seemed engaged.
“If
there is one characteristic in men and women of this planet; that is unmatched
in the levels of development in comparison to any other species, it is their
capability to “FEIGN”! Somehow, they have mastered the art of concealing
their true emotions and true intentions behind the garb of more acceptable
moral standards. They can feign happiness on being sad, morality on being
corrupt, contentment on being hollow, care on being apathetic, and trustworthiness
on being shrewd. No other creature on this planet is as adept in doing it. If
you could deprive them of this ability, they would not be able to dupe others.
There would be a lot more peace and happiness in the world.”
“But
do you know why they feign instead of coming out open with their true feelings?”,
he shook me by his question.
As
I tried contemplating, he continued, “I have given you the ideals to follow,
an intellect to attain them and a conscience to warn you if at all you falter.
I have essentially programmed your life around these ideals. In the process of
growing up, you will certainly learn the importance of success but you will
never be able to unlearn the fact that the dignity in any success comes from
honesty and rectitude. And so when you won’t practice these ideals, you will
feign them. You will wrap your debased and irrational hedonism in the sugary
coating of feigned righteousness.”
“But
this should create guilt and conflict in a human’s mind, which it doesn’t seem
to do!”, I quickly retorted.
“Well,
it does!” He smiled. “And to be able to fight through this conflict to
reach to the path of righteousness is what you are meant to learn in this life.”
“But
how and why does one choose corrupt values over the righteous ones in the first
place..?”, I enquired.
“Values
guide you in two ways. One set of values are terminal values which are
the end-goals that you will hope to achieve in our lifetime while the
other ones are instrumental values which are the means by which you
will accomplish these end goals. By this explanation; social recognition,
prosperity, happiness etc would fall in the category of terminal values and
honesty, courage, obedience, truthfulness etc would constitute the instrumental
values. And much of the story of corruption gets incepted in the relative
importance of these values in your lives.”
In
no time, I understood what God was hinting at. I tried to add, “It means
that how upright or corrupt we become is a function of how much importance we
give to the means in comparison to the end-states. For e.g. the moment
prosperity assumes prime importance to a person irrespective of the means which
begets such prosperity, the seed of corruption is sown!”
“Exactly”,
he exclaimed. “If human society would consider money, posting, rewards and
medals as the barometers of success; it is bound to produce the individuals who
would bury their instrumental values of uprightness and hard-work to scale the
heights of ‘success’ through any means possible, including corruption, bribes,
nepotism etc. The essence of your living is not unabashed personal
aggrandizement at the cost of others, but a collective well-being of all. And
that is where your happiness and peace will come from.”
But
before I could pose further queries from my hitherto unsettled mind, the
morning alarm rang aloud in my ears. My eyes searched for the same Kingdom of
God on the walls of my room, only to realize that it had settled down deep in
my heart already.
As
I stepped into my balcony for a taste of morning breeze, the apprehensiveness of
an unfair world had subsumed itself into a determination of the right means.
Jai
Hind!
