It is in such a bad taste that the mind desperately urges to run away
from the TV sets or think of that impossible situation where they all could be
dumped somewhere deep so that their twisted voices cannot surface. These so
called Seers, Gurus, Saints, the modern day Shankaracharyas, the Sadhus, the
religious Satraps, and their ugly bickering in the name of sanctifying the
religion and their silly and unpardonable crusades – who is asking them to
represent us – who are they to interfere in our personal matters?
Practicing religion is personal and no one has any right to issue a diktat
to follow this or that God or this or that Saint or a diktat on whom to believe
in as a God. But ‘they doing so’ tells us they do not follow the religion they
boast to represent. In fact no religion allows for gaudy display of God
ownership and faith ownership. Unfortunately, such ‘representatives’ have had a
long run.
Every religion, in its true essence, preaches and teaches love and
peace. If we don’t talk of the distortions and the distorted leading opinions,
no one religion imposes itself on the other. In essence, every religion is
anti-crusade, in its purest, in its spiritual form. In fact, a devout religious
soul respects other religions in the same way as his/her.
And who can symbolize it better than the Mother Teresa – who was born on
August 26, 1910 in Albania, a European country under the Ottoman Empire then –
and who spent her whole life in India since 1928. She was a devout catholic and
followed the ways and the teachings of Jesus religiously. It is said Jesus came
to her asking her to be His messenger, spreading the message of His love and
peace by working for those who needed it the most, the poor, the needy, and
in-turn, receiving the love and peace Himself, because He exists in every such
soul. And she followed the message, with her beginning in 1948, when she
established an order to work for the poor, and she was soon to become the
Mother.
It hurt Jesus to love us, it hurt him. And to make sure we remember his
great love he made himself the bread of life to satisfy our hunger for his
love. Our hunger for God, because we have been created for that love. We have
been created in his image. We have been created to love and be loved, and then
he has become man to make it possible for us to love as he loved us. He makes
himself the hungry one – the naked one – the homeless one – the sick one – the
one in prison – the lonely one – the unwanted one – and he says: You did it to
me. Hungry for our love, and this is the hunger of our poor people. This is the
hunger that you and I must find, it may be in our own home.
(From the Nobel Lecture delivered by the Mother on December 11, 1979 on
being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.)
She remained a devout Catholic throughout her life but devoted her life
to the people of a largely Hindu country. She never asked for the religion. Her
doors were open to everyone. She found Jesus in every needy soul. She became so
Indian that she is known as the ‘Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’. In fact, her
religious adherence was her inspiration, the force behind her motherly love. People
loving her are in every walk of like, in India, around the world, something
that the so called religious satraps of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity or for
that matter any other religion can never even dream of. What is happening to
her Order is debatable and even Mother Teresa’s life and works have seen many
controversies but when we remember her, the first image that comes before us is
of a loving mother who gave her whole in the service of the poor. She remains
among the people even after her passing away in 1997 because she remains in the
soul of humanity.
Though she is going to be canonized on September 4 by the Vatican that
will officially accord her the status of being a Saint, she has always been
seen like the one. In fact, Saints should like her, a modern day Saint as the
TIME magazine’s “Mother Teresa at 100: The Life and Works of a Modern Saint”
rightly says, not like them who are ready to tear into each other yesterday and
today, on TV sets, in public. Thanks for blessing humanity dear Mother. Thanks
for blessing India. Thanks for being there for those who needed peace and who
desperately needed help. Thanks for being there Mother.
©SantoshChaubey