In one of his famous poems, T.S. Eliot (Choruses from The Rock) makes
a very significant observation about the time we are living in today,
which comes close to the ulatbaansis (paradoxes) of our very own
mystic poet Kabir. He says: “Men have left God not for other gods,
they say, but for no God; and this has never happened before/that men
both deny gods and worship gods… In an age which advances
progressively backwards?”Yes, it is a very big question. Are we moving
forward or backwards? Are we progressing or regressing? Superficially,
we seem to have leaped very high, dizzying heights, never seen before,
but as far as the state of love, consciousness, non-violence,
compassion, sensitivity and poetic creativity is concerned, it is
becoming very dry. We reason a lot and indulge in all kinds of clever
mind games, logic-chopping, but heart-to-heart connectivity between
human beings is fading away very fast. And with this, the sacred
feeling of divinity is disappearing. We have forgotten the prophetic
words of Jesus: “Man does not live by bread alone…”
Osho describes the present situation: Yes, something has happened that
has never happened before: for the first time in the evolution of
human consciousness, man stands alienated from God. Man stands
separated from existence. Man stands lonely, with no companion, in
great darkness, with no light to lead him, to guide him. Man has never
been in such despair, man has never been in such a state of
homelessness.
We have created sky scrappers, and they make humans feel dwarfs. Every
day such monstrous buildings are competing with the other buildings in
heights. The trees look very tiny. Not long ago it used to be the
other way, trees were higher than our homes giving us abundant oxygen
and prana energy.
What we have now, is fumes of thousands of vehicles in a congested
area. It is really a miracle how we are adjusting to all this un-godly
prana-sucking deadly situation in a concrete jungle.
Osho reminds us: Man had always lived with nature. To live with nature
is to live with God in an indirect way, because nature reflects God in
a thousand and one ways. The growing trees, faraway call of the
cuckoo, winds in the pine trees, rivers moving towards the ocean and
the proud mountains standing in the sun and the starry night, and it
is impossible not to be reminded of some invisible hands. It is
impossible not to see that existence is not dead, but alive. The ocean
heaves, breathes; the whole existence is a growing phenomenon. It is
not dead, it cannot be dead.
Everything is growing. Because of this growing experience man has
remained constantly aware of some invisible, mysterious force behind
it all. That force is called God. God is not a person, but just a
presence. When you go deep into the Himalayas, you again feel a kind
of reverence, awe and you wonder. Again you feel something that was
very easily available to the primitive man.