Drink at the Spring
In Zen, in Taoism and in the Gita, young urban Indians are finding life
Drink at the Spring
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What is dramatically different about this new and intense interest in all things spiritual in Indian metros is that there is nothing ritualistic about it. Neither is it rooted in piety, which sent earlier generations to temples and satsangs. The newfound attraction to spirituality is more measured, based as it is on an almost scholarly approach. Instead of waiting till retirement to ask the age-old questions, city folks are starting early, at the peak of their careers, eager to find answers that help them in the here and now.
And the numbers are growing. Some 700 people have signed up for the home study course on Bhagavad Gita, launched in July by the Chinmaya Mission Foundation, which specialises in courses on Vedanta and Sanskrit. “We have students from both genders, all ages—from 18 to 80—and people from varied fields like teachers, businessmen, builders, government employees, corporate executives, research students, retired people and housewives,” says Manisha Makhecha, the coordinator for the mission’s home-study programmes. The fee: Rs 3,000 for a 15-month course delivered by e-mail. And the reasons people are taking the course? Some say they “want to improve the standards of personal life by applying this knowledge”, some say they are on a spiritual quest. Some want to learn how to be happy.
In Delhi, the Ahmisa Trust, which organises sanghas to discuss Buddhist texts and practise meditation in several locations across the city every alternate Thursday, started a new chapter in Noida a month ago. The crowd is mixed, aged anywhere between 30 and 65. Anita Anand, who coordinates the Defence Colony sangha, attributes the shift to spirituality to the pressures of modern life, in which marriages and families are breaking down. People are realising that material comforts may be fulfilled but emotional needs are not. “Once the children leave the house, and job responsibilities are routine, midlife crisis strikes. People start to wonder what their life is worth,” says Anita.
As Aspi puts it, most people usually turn to spirituality after some trauma, a common enough occurrence in this age, asking two versions of the same query—‘Why me?’, or the more general ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’
Take Aditya Apte, an investment manager, who has never been the “religious sort”. But after he turned 31, he began seeking a “deeper meaning” to his life. So he decided to enrol for a six-day course called ‘Journey of Self-Discovery’, run by ISKCON monks. He was expecting to find retired people as classmates and was pleasantly surprised to find most of the 160 students were young professionals like him. There were some MBA and engineering students too. Chaitanya Roop, the monk who taught the class, came armed with PowerPoint presentations on topics like ‘The Search for Happiness’, ‘The Existence of God’, ‘Reincarnation’ and, of course, ‘Why Bad Things Happen to Good People’. At the end of the six days, after approximately nine hours of lectures and discussions, most of the class had signed up for Round 2—an advanced course on the Bhagavad Gita.
For Dr Rekha Kusum, a participant, the Gita is first and foremost a “practical text”. “I didn’t want to wait till I was retired to read the Gita. It is a blueprint for a dynamic life and it certainly helps you function more efficiently in these stressful times, in a more detached manner. It teaches you not to take everything so personally,” she says. Nilesh Neharia, 33, an options trader dealing with the ups and downs of the stockmarket daily, similarly turned to the Gita to function in equanimity while still giving his “100 per cent”.
Most of these new spiritualists are 30-50 years of age and have rejected rituals as a way to connect to religion. It is this age group that a new breed of professionals are eyeing for their ‘spirituality workshops’. Mayur Khabrai, 34, is one of them. Till recently, he was a senior executive at an mnc with a handsome salary. Now, he is training to be a life coach and is in the process of “liquidating his assets” to start his own institute for spirituality-based counselling and workshops. His ‘Below the Bo-Tree Workshop’ is a weekend session on Taoism using 16 verses from Chinese philosopher-mystic Lao-Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. Cost: Rs 1,500. Mayur has trained in Zen Buddhist traditions with a Tibetan monk and has held six successful workshops since he began in June this year, each with 20 participants. As more people jump on to the spiritual bandwagon, his career move couldn’t have been better timed.
In fact, the term ‘spiritual quotient’ was coined in 2000 by psychologist Danah Zohar in her book SQ: Ultimate Intelligence. It was rated a step above the other established parameters of intelligence—IQ and EQ (emotional quotient). According to Dr S.S. Nathawat, director and dean of Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences in Rajasthan, SQ cannot be measured as easily as IQ, because everyone answers questions according to an “idealised sense of self”. Instead, SQ is measured by observing behaviour and revolves around value-based qualities that are consistently displayed, say altruism, compassion, gentleness, honesty and sincerity. In short, traits that show a person is working towards personal growth. People with higher SQ are not necessarily religious, but show qualities that are extolled in spiritual texts.
One of the more practical applications of Indian spiritual traditions in psychology has come from 40-year-old psychologist Shilpa Dattar. After completing her PhD on Indian psychology from Mysore University and completing a two-year home study course in Advaita Vedanta from Chinmaya Mission, she has come up with a series of psychometric tests based on the Vedic concepts. It may not be too late before one of the spirituality workshops incorporates these tests as part of its PowerPoint presentations.