Introduction
How a monk wrote a book about a movie?
“Oh My God!” was the first movie that I watched after nearly fifteen years. After doing engineering from the Government College of Engineering, Pune, and working in a multinational software company, I became convinced that I could best serve society by studying and sharing spiritual knowledge. Wanting to dedicate myself fully to this service, I became a monk in 1998. Since then, my spiritual study, teaching and writing left me with no time or interest for watching movies.
Nonetheless, I did stay in touch with the movie world. As I frequently answered questions on my website www.thespiritualscientist.com. I was sometimes asked questions about movies that had some connection with spirituality, for example, Om Shanti Om that depicted the reincarnation of its hero and heroine. But never was I asked as many questions about any one movie as about Oh My God. Normally, when I am asked to comment on a movie, I read its reviews and get an adequate idea of the plot and the thrust. I did the same with OMG and got a fair sense of the questions that it raised. In response, I gave audio answers and wrote an article. But several friends suggested that as this movie raised so many questions, it merited a more elaborate, book-length response. They also insisted that to address those questions effectively, I needed to understand the emotional appeal of OMG, and for that I had to watch it.
That’s how I watched a Bollywood movie after fifteen years. Some people had warned me that OMG was blasphemous, but I didn’t see it that way. I firmly believe that when we start labeling reasonable arguments as blasphemy, we start slipping towards fanaticism. And many of the arguments made in OMG were definitely reasonable, some even excellent. When Akshay Kumar playing as Krishna says, “Main Bhagavan hu isliye chamatkar kartaa hu, na ki main chamatkar kartaa hu isliye Bhagavan hu”, he states the relationship between God’s identity and miracles brilliantly.
I not only appreciated OMG’s logic, but also connected emotionally with the courage and rage of Kanjibhai. I remembered how in my teens I had worshiped Ganesh for doing well in a particular exam. But when the results didn’t turn out as well as I had expected, I became so angry that I tore apart a picture of Ganesh and threw it away. My mother who had encouraged me to do that worship watched on in silent horror. From her past experience with my fits of rage, she knew better than to try to stop me at such times. Soon after that incident, I became an atheist. In Kanjibhai’s rage at the destruction of his shop, I could see an enlarged version of my teenage rage.
If I was like that just a few decades ago, why am I today a monk trying to share God’s message with others? It’s a long answer and this book is not the forum for that. But the essential cause of my transformation was education. Over the years, I have found answers to many questions that I had considered unanswerable. In the Vedic wisdom-tradition I have found a coherent and cogent worldview that provides intellectually satisfactory answers to life’s fundamental questions. That’s why I felt inspired to dedicate my life to studying and sharing this knowledge.
Education has two core parts: to know that we don’t know and to know what we don’t know. OMG highlights the first part of education; it raises many valid questions that demonstrate how we know so little about religion. In this book, I focus on the second part of education by striving to answer those questions.
I use the words ‘strive to answer’ because several of the answers are not just about conceptual understanding but about practical living. I am striving to live according to the time-honored spiritual principles that I explain in these answers. The godmen indicted in OMG make a mockery of these principles and I have no intention of defending them. In fact, I enjoyed the exposure of their arrogance, hypocrisy and peevishness.
However, the danger of OMG-type depictions is blanket generalization. Many spiritual teachers are purely and selflessly devoted to God; they work tirelessly to help others as a part of their devotion to God. I don’t mean to imply that I am one among them; that would be presumptuous. But I do know that many of my spiritual teachers live close to this saintly standard; I am their student and servant, trying to emulate their glorious example according to my small capacity. Nonetheless, the point to emphasize is that the ideal of saintly devotion to God does exist – definitely in principle and limitedly in practice.
And isn’t this the way people are in all fields? A rare few are ideal; most are average and some are abysmal. Consider the field of medicine. Doctors selflessly devoted to treating others at the risk of their own lives are a rare few. Doctors seeking a career that also provides a life long avenue for helping others are in the majority. And doctors who use treatment as a masquerade to fleece their patients as much as possible are the bottom abysmal few. If these worst of the ranks of doctors were depicted as the typical, doctors would have a right to feel wronged, wouldn’t they?
When some pathetic godmen – the worst of the ranks of spiritual teachers – are depicted as the typical, don’t spiritual teachers have a right to feel similarly wronged? OMG does try to avoid this extreme by depicting one of the gurus, the Pujari played by Arun Bali, as humble, considerate and conciliatory? However, that attempt is undeveloped; OMG quickly reduces him to the role of a cheerleader for Kanjibhai – a cheerleader dressed in saffron.
The godmen are pathetic in both their behavior and in their answers to Kanjibhai’s questions. But do all spiritual teachers have to be like that? If an intelligent person like Kanjibhai can learn a few things by using his basic common sense and by studying the Bhagavad-gita for two months, then couldn't others like him have learnt more by studying it much longer? Might there exist saintly people who combine the sincerity of the Pujari and the logicality of Kanjibhai? I have met many. On their behalf, I write this book.
Part of the charm of OMG is the middle-class status of Kanjibhai; everyone can relate with him. You can if you like consider me to be a middle-class monk. On the lower side are roadside beggars who don ochre robes to increase their alms; on the upper side are charismatic gurus who have thousands of followers. I am somewhere in between – an ordinary teacher and writer on spiritual topics. I like more to think and write in private than speak in public. I have no charisma, no extraordinary abilities – just a desire to share what I have learnt from my teachers.
A middle-class monk answering the questions of a middle class man. Poetic justice at work? I don’t know. Maybe you can decide after reading this book.
Actually, OMG doesn’t just raise questions; it also claims to give answers. These answers are given explicitly by Kanjibhai in his answers to the questions he is asked in a TV talk show and implicitly by Kanjibhai through his actions that he chooses with the approval of the movie’s Krishna. These answers raise serious questions about several specific religious practices as well as the generic role of religion in society. This book addresses such issues raised by those answers, hence its subtitle: re-answering the questions.
I have written this book as a series of question-answers to make it easily accessible. You can go directly to any question that interests you. However, as every successive question builds on the previous QAs, you may gain a clearer understanding if you go from the start to the end. As OMG was in Hindi, I have sprinkled bits of Hindi throughout the book to highlight its relationship with the movie. If you are unfamiliar with Hindi, I have given the English translations of the Hindi statements as footnotes.
I hope this book will help you find a healthy balance between blind belief and blind disbelief.
Chaitanya Charan Das
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