Lessons from the coronavirus (part 2)
This is the second part in a series on Coronavirus. Read the first part here, published on March 30, 2020.
The virus is back with renewed vigour. No one expected such a dramatic return. Just when the whole world had decided that they had beaten it, we find that we are swamped by it.
Why has Nature done this? In this second wave is Nature giving us another chance to understand that what we have to do is to improve our immune system instead of running after a miracle drug which we just have to swallow or get a jab and then go back to our own disgraceful lifestyle. Vaccines and other patent medicines will only be able to stem the tide. They will not be able to stop the flood!!
It is high time that we started thinking for ourselves rather than depending on science to save us. Let us face it. Science has only made us more dependent on external factors than depending on ourselves. Nature has given us a beautiful machine that can run of its own accord provided it is given the treatment and the fuel that it is meant to get. Science can only give a little help towards this but we have allowed it to take over and rule us instead of being ruled by us. It is the story of Frankenstein all over again – the robot that tried to gobble up its own maker!
With our heads in the mouth of death, we are still busy cheating, belittling, cursing and defrauding people instead of trying to improve ourselves and helping others. Pseudo drugs are being made and peddled in the market to fool innocent people. Will we never understand why Nature is doing this to us? She has tried many other methods like tsunamis, floods, draughts, fires, and cloud bursts plus all types of lethal flus, but we have shrugged them off as being of no consequence and gone forward on our selfish path unmindful of the flowers that are being crushed beneath our uncaring feet. We don’t care who gets hurt as long as we remain safe.
The earth has become a very unsafe place for all other creatures because of this utterly selfish attitude. Because of our total lack of respect for this earth that has given birth to us, because of our total disregard for every other creature on this earth, we find that many creatures have become extinct and many are on the list of endangered species.
Let us look at the history of the world that has lasted for millions of years. We realise that the world did exist long, long before the homo sapiens made their appearance. What was the scenario then? Many, many enormous and very powerful creatures, like dinosaurs and such had come and become extinct. Why did Nature decimate them? The one glaring reason is that they did nothing to enhance the environment. On the contrary, they demolished everything that stood in their way. Can we see the resemblance? It is time we realised that we are quite unnecessary for the existence of this planet. Not only will it go on by itself without our help but it will get on a lot better without our interference. Since we are supposedly reasonable creatures, we have been given hint after hint that unless we change our attitude towards this earth and towards each other, we will soon go the way of the dinosaurs!
Yes! We who have wiped out so many creatures from the face of the earth and who are in the process of decimating many others will soon be an endangered species! I have no doubt that this is Nature’s plan. “The wheels of God turn slowly but they grind exceedingly fine!” Make no mistake about this. Nature will have no qualms in decimating a species that has proved its worthlessness in accommodating other creatures that inhabit the same planet and in not recognising the sacredness of the earth that we trample upon daily! We do not realise that we are tottering on the brink of a volcano that might go off at any moment! Time is of no consequence to her. She has infinity at her disposal and eternity at her command. Chance after chance has been given to us but we have chosen not to take the hint.
We have defiled her in every way possible. We have defiled the earth and filled it with plastics that will eventually cover the entire planet and stop anything from growing. We have defiled the rivers and our water bodies so that we can never drink pure water anymore. We have defiled the oceans so that the fish and other aquatic creatures can no longer exist. We have polluted the very air that gives us life so that now we breathe in poison! That air which was given to us free of cost has now become the costliest thing on earth. No poor person can afford to buy the oxygen that is becoming so difficult for us to get. She is really choking the very life out of us! Can we blame her? Even in this terrible state, we will not give anything free to anyone. We still hoard and collect and keep for ourselves that which Nature has freely given to us without demanding payment. All she demanded was that we tread on her softly, treat her children kindly, allow others to enjoy this earth that she has given us so lovingly. Have we listened? Have we cared?
The time has come when she can no longer bear the insults that are being heaped on her. This scene is enacted many times in our Puranas – when the earth goddess goes with her tale of woe to Vishnu and he takes an avatara. But we have never listened to our avataras so Vishnu has given over the case to Prakriti – His Nature who is the one who is being unbearably ill-treated. She has decided to demand payment and the coin is the coin of death! The life that we failed to cherish and safeguard is now being taken away from us.
We live in an age of instant foods and instant cures. We are the most impatient generation ever known in the world. We must have answers here and now and the government should give them to us. If they don’t, we must pull it down. Now everyone is running after the miracle vaccine which will totally protect us like a “shield”. Let me tell you that there is no such thing. The virus is mutating at a crazy speed. How can any scientist keep producing vaccines for each of these mutations and give to everyone in the country? Which is the country that can produce that much vaccine that can completely protect all its citizens?
But we are still living in a fool’s purgatory! “Things are getting better”, is what the media tells us. “Everyone should get vaccinated. That will make everything perfect once more”. What’s happening on the island of Seychelles? The world’s most vaccinated nation is seeing a terrible rise in daily cases and is reinstating curbs.
The first wave concentrated on the old and the weak. That was OK. We are the generation that has brought the world to this pass. We are the ones who refused to see the damage we were doing and passed on a disgraceful heritage to our children. So, we deserve to die.
Now comes the second wave more lethal than the last! It is directly attacking our children. And why not? Have we ever spared Nature’s children? Have we not slaughtered lambs and calves and chickens because their meat was more tender? Why should Nature spare our children now?
Dashamahavidyas
The “dashamahavidyas” (ten different types of destructive goddesses) are on the rampage! They will spare no one that stands in their way. And why should they? Have we ever spared anyone? We are the most ferocious, cruel, and brutal predators the planet has ever seen. Animals, hunt and kill only for the sake of their food and sometimes in fights over sex. We hunt for pleasure! We kill for the joy of the kill! We kill in order to satisfy our palates. We kill so that we may enjoy the feel of the fur wrapped around our shoulders. And most heinous of our deeds – we kill if the other party does not agree with our ideologies! Why should Nature spare us? What have we done to earn her respect?
Mark my words this apparent change is only a lull in the storm. The third wave will come after the lull. And it will be even worse than the second. It will keep on repeating until the last of the homo sapiens is wiped off the face of the earth. There is no time to be lost. There is a very small chance that we might retrieve a small part of what we have lost if we change our pattern of behaviour and learn to obey her orders!
I know it sounds pessimistic but I feel it’s almost too late to change the course of the wheel. We have to act immediately and we have to act as a whole. We will all be saved together or damned together. There’s no question of some nations being saved and others rotting. This world is meant to be a whole. It cannot be made into a chequerboard of different countries as we have done. Today we are all standing on the edge of a volcano that has already started rumbling and might erupt at any moment unless immediate action is taken. The action is not to be taken by the scientists but by ourselves! Too long have we sat back in complacency expecting science to save us. We cannot save the world unless we save ourselves. In fact, it’s only by saving ourselves that we can save the world.
Hinduism is the only religion that states clearly that the individual is totally responsible for his own physical, mental and spiritual states. We do not blame God or our parents or the government for any disaster that overcome us. We take matters into our own hands and search for answers. Had we acted as responsible citizens in the first place this virus would not have reached such proportions. At the first onslaught, everyone was terror-stricken and stuck to all the rules given by the government but afterward when the country became almost normal everyone threw all rules overboard and started behaving in a most irresponsible manner. Naturally, the virus also went overboard and attacked everyone indiscriminately. But it’s not actually indiscriminate – it is attacking those who are weak. I don’t mean weak just physically but most important those whose natural immunity has been terribly weakened due to wrong habits of eating, excessive use of allopathic drugs as well as a total disregard of the rules of hygiene that have been dinned into us by our culture!
Hinduism has often been blamed for concentrating on individual liberation and individual salvation. Now we understand why this has been told to us. Even if one drop of water in a bottle is poisonous, it can poison the whole bottle. If every drop concentrated on being perfect then the whole bottle of water would be perfect.
Why is Bharat being chastised so severely? Every country has a karma and ours from thousands of years past has been to serve as a role model to the world. Spirituality had reached its peak here. The rishis have given us a method of living which would incorporate the whole world, which would prove as a model as to how a person should behave. “Vaasudeva Kudumbakam” is what they said. This means “The whole world is God’s family!” In ancient times we had followed this dictate. The whole of South East Asia had been Hindu. Of course, at that time Europe did not even exist so they were never taken into consideration!
Hinduism is “a way of life”. Everything necessary for a healthy, happy and spiritual life has been embedded into our lifestyle for thousands of years. Hence our genes are pretty strong and capable of resisting a lot of germs, diseases and yes, viruses. However, this type of resistance has been slowly worn down with the advent of all the habits that the west has brought, all of which are totally at variance with our own culture. But somehow, they have neatly convinced us into believing that their 2,000-year-old culture is superior to our 50,000-year-old civilization. This has led to a breakdown of many of our natural anti-disease barriers that have been built up over the centuries as well as the naturally strengthening food habits that have been ingrained into us for centuries. We have broken the sacred trust that has been placed on us and thus we have to be punished more severely than others who are ignorant of this. The higher we are on the scale of evolution, the more responsibility do we have. We have betrayed the rishis; we have betrayed our avataras and our saints by falling into the western trap of considering economic dominance to be better than spiritual superiority. We have become a nation of vaishyas – traders, with no morals, ready to throw overboard every virtue that has been dinned into us by our culture for the sake of some tainted money.
Our gods have fled from our temples for we offer them only the dubious coin of gold in lieu of a heart filled with love! “Patram, pushpam, phalam, thoyam, yo me bhaktya upasate”. “Whoever offers me a leaf, a flower, a fruit or just water, with love, I shall happily accept” is what Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita. He has never at any time said, “Give me gold!”
As mentioned before the weakness in us is not just physical but emotional. We care only for ourselves. Such arrant and selfish disregard for the needs of the country and of everyone else and every other creature on the planet and disregard for the earth itself has never been found in any other life form except the human being. We have condemned ourselves to the gallows. Slowly but surely, we will be decimated. Perhaps it’s already too late to save ourselves. The cancer has spread all over the globe. But the will of God is supreme (Isavasyamidam sarvam). Mass prayer coupled with a dramatic change in our lifestyle and attitude must have an effect. There is no time to be lost. Let us stop depending on governments and technology and start changing our attitude. The only way we can save ourselves and the world is by going back to our ancient way of righteous living – the Sanatana Dharma. We are the ones to set the example.
Hinduism offers a host of methods by which we can battle dire diseases. Not only does it offer many yogic and pranayama practices but it also offers many medical systems such as Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy which though not indigenous is being practiced with great success in this country.
What we should be agitating for is not for the production of more vaccines but for a return to our ancient way of life which guarantees total protection from all sorts of germs and viruses. Maybe all of us can’t return to that way of life all of a sudden or maybe we don’t have enough faith in it. But all of us have faith in something external like pills and tablets. Then let us at least turn to our ancient methods of curing. Bharat has produced the most ancient medical science in the world. Ayurveda is the science of life and not of disease. It strengthens the body so that it can fight the disease.
Now Ayurveda has also come out with certain tablets and concoctions which may not be as effective as the ancient method of a “Vaid” going to the forest and collecting herbs for the patient, but still, it is better than anything Allopathy can produce.
We also have many other types of alternative medicine like “Siddha”, “Unani” and “Naturopathy” etc. Even though Homeopathy is not totally Indian yet there are many wonderful homeopathic practitioners in this country who have a range of medicines that can treat any type of disease including viruses. Instead of berating the government to give us vaccines, we should be asking them to provide these types of alternative and indigenous methods of cure that have proven their worth for centuries instead of meekly following the western herd!!
Of course, the food we eat is very important. Ayurveda says, “Let food be your medicine and medicine your food”. We eat only to suit our tongue and have no care about what suits our bodies. When the body tries to throw out the unwanted stuff through diarrhoea or vomiting etc. we forcibly control the process through the use of external medicines instead of letting it take its own course. Fever is another method the body uses to cleanse its system but the moment we have a fever we are taught to suppress it with medicines. The doctor happily tells us to take the medicine and eat what we want! Nature tells us to rest and fast on liquids so that the body can shake off the danger by sweating it out through the fever. The western medical system is a symptomatic method of repressing the symptoms so that we think the disease is cured. But since it is only a suppression, the disease will recur at the very next opportunity.
When these symptoms are suppressed again and again, they turn into incurable diseases like diabetes, heart problems, hypertension, insomnia, anxiety, neuroses etc. which in turn need more medicines to suppress! This is a relentless, unending cycle that ends only in death.
Now let us see what were the methods taken in Bharat to combat such diseases. Actually, the one and only way according to our ancient Ayurvedic texts is to strengthen our inner immunity. The body is a fantastic machine that can take care of itself provided the right type of fuel is given. Even a car cannot function at peak capacity if filled with adulterated petrol or kerosene! The fuel referred to for the human being does not allude only to what we eat through our mouths but also through all the other organs. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the noises we listen to and so on. It also refers to the stuff we ingest through our minds! This is very, very important. Any negativity in the mind will instantly affect our immune system.
We have very little time left. Our generation is the most ungrateful one so far produced. The law of karma is infallible. We will have to pay for our repeated mistakes. The selfishness and hatred we have bottled up in our hearts have made us most vulnerable to the smallest of diseases. Nature will not hesitate to wipe us out so that she can create another species that is not so ungrateful and vicious as this one!
Let us go back to our scriptures and our ancient methods of life and medicine that is our heritage. This is the only thing we can do at this point of time. Let us beg for forgiveness from that compassionate Godhead and beseech Him to give us another chance!
Hari Aum Tat Sat
