Tuesday, December 10, 2024
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Faith, when reason has consumed its oil

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By Fabian Lyngdoh

According to a well known Khasi mythology, man and all creatures, living and non-living, were able to communicate with each other through the common language of truth, understood not by the intellect or reason but directly by the heart or by intuition. Due to certain voluntary actions committed by man which were displeasing to the Divine, the cosmic order disrupted and man failed to understand the common language of truth. The truth then fled beyond the reach of human understanding. According to this mythology, the truth was signified by the sun which fled into a dark cave called “Ka Krem Lamet-Latang.” Man could no longer attain direct knowledge or experience of the truth. Man was cut off from his own spiritual nature and lost knowledge of spiritual reality. That grace was taken away from man. In turn he was given reason, intellect and a language so that at least he would not be totally in the dark. With reason, intellect and language man was equipped to recover as far as possible the status of his spiritual reality. For man, the truth had become a mystery. There was no living being, existing at the level of Reason, who could deliver man from that malady. Mythology says that in this spiritual chaos, man summoned a Dorbar of all creatures to discuss the problem. ‘U Kohkarang’ (hornbill) volunteered to approach the sun, and man agreed. The hornbill, instead of imploring the sun to have mercy on all creatures, was struck by her beauty. So he started flirting with her. In anger the sun struck him with her golden stool which got stuck on his head. The Khasi elders say that on this account, the hornbill to this day would never fly towards the direction of the sun. This story is a metaphor to decipher mystery with the faculty of reason. Only a being that exists partly on earth and partly in the realm of mystery, could intervene in man’s quest for the truth that lies in mystery or beyond reason. Who else had not attended the Dorbar? It was found that ‘U Khun Lymboit-Lymbiang’ had not attended. So man summoned him and sought his intervention. This creature lives on earth but away from other living beings. He is called ‘U Khun Lymboit-Lymbiang’ because he is naked, without head or tail, without eyes, mouth or ears and without proper form. That being is the fertilized ovum enclosed in a shell which we call the EGG. A fertilized egg is a living being but excluded from other living beings by a non-living matter, the shell. Only fertilized eggs in which life processes exist are used in divination rites by the Khasis. In human beings, the female ovum is fertilized in the womb and when the life process begins it remains there for about nine months before being born as a baby into this world. In the Khasi concept, the womb which holds a fertilized ovum or a growing child is called “Ka Jar Ksiar-Iawbei” or the “golden bag of the ancestress”. In the case of birds the fertilized ovum is born into the world together with “Ka Jar Ksiar-Iawbei” which is the egg shell. The hen gives birth to the egg, but it is the egg which after sometimes gives birth to the chick. The growing chick inside the egg shell is born into the world but it cannot yet join with the living because it is still enclosed inside ‘Ka Jarksiar-Iawbei.”

The being inside the egg lives in the realm of mystery. It is linked to the material and spiritual world, between the living and the dead. It is alive but not yet living; it sleeps in a trance in the realm of mystery. It is on this account that the Khasis believe that the egg can be used in a divination rite as a medium through which the interceding spirits can communicate to the world of human beings. Existing on earth but sleeping in a trance, the egg can connect people living on earth with the departed members of their ‘kur’ (clan), and through them to God.

There is a general belief that any being living in a trance can act as a medium of communication between this world and the netherworld. It is said that the priestess in Apollo’s temple at Delphi in Greece could give prophetic answers only when she was in a trance. Among the Khasis too there were persons, usually women who are believed to be able to prophesy when they are in a trance. In Khasi this is called, Kren Taro’ or ‘Kren Shwar’. This Khasi belief in the ability of a being existing in a trance to act as a medium of communication between the physical world and the spiritual world has something in common with beliefs in other parts of the world.

Coming back to Khasi mythology, when the egg had agreed to intervene between man and truth, it was dressed in royal attire complete with turban and gold ornaments and it became a cock. Its mission was to approach the sun where she hid in the cave- ‘Ka krem Lamet-Latang’ and to implore her to return and shed her light upon the earth. Struck by his humility, the sun agreed to return to the earth. She instructed him to clap three times as he returned to the earth and reached the threshold of division between reason and mystery, between light and darkness and between life and death, so that she would come out of her hiding. He observed the instruction and the sun appeared and shed her light upon the world to the joy and happiness of all creatures. The Khasis used to tell their children that the sun rises because the cock crows three times. A thanksgiving sacrifice was offered by sacrificing a cock when the truth was revealed. It took the intervention of a half living and half dead for revelation of the truth; it takes the life of a being from the world of the living to be sacrificed to carry the thanksgiving to the spiritual world. But in the religion of the Khasis, the egg and the cock are used only as media of communication between the visible world and the nether world, but they are not the intercessors between man and God. It is the souls of the departed members along with that of ‘ka Iawbei’ (ancestress) and ‘u Suidnia’ (first uncle) of the kur, which constitute the intercession between man and God and not the egg or the cock.

There is a lesson in this mythology. The hornbill was struck by the beauty of the sun; he was struck on the head with the stool and condemned forever not to face the sun again. On the other hand the sun was struck by the humility of ‘u Khun Lymboit-Lymbiang’ and agreed to reveal herself through him. Let us humbly admit that our scientific knowledge is not sufficient to explain the great mystery of human life in the entire system of things. It also requires intuition or spiritual revelation to complete the scheme. Science in the strictest sense, is the study or knowledge of matter in whatever form it is manifested, but not about spiritual reality. Our logic in the strictest sense is just an attempt to prove the truth which is already there, or a truth which has been readily accepted by faith, but necessary to satisfy the stubbornness of reason. Right conclusion is arrived at not merely by following a correct logical process, but because of the right presumption of the first premise. If the first premise is wrong, no matter how correct our logical process is, we would be swimming ad-infinitum in the ocean of fallacy. And we know that the truth of the first premise is acquired through the most important step of induction called the ‘inductive-leap’ or a leap in the dark. Inductive-leap is nothing but the submission of reason to belief and faith. It is a leap beyond reason or as the Khasis conceive it, ‘a leap into ‘ka Krem Lamet-Latang’.

The mystic says that if we acquire ultimate knowledge or spiritual realization we will conceive reality as one. The materialist on the other hand says that if we acquire ultimate knowledge, we would see and understand nature as infinite varieties. Who is right and who is wrong is difficult to say but two facts are very clear in our daily experience: The plurality of reality, and the limitation of human knowledge. Which of this is the cause and which is the effect? Is human knowledge limited by the infinite plurality of reality? Or is reality appearing in infinite plurality due to limited human knowledge? Life is a great jigsaw puzzle where the shapes of the parts are revealed, but the shape of the ultimate whole is concealed. Nevertheless we are not out of track by following the way of the sensible reality. A scientist who denies the existence of God is not beyond the purview of God because his science itself is part of the whole reality established by God. Science cannot take him to the end of his quest, but to a point where the border of mystery begins. Science and reason can safely lead him there, then he should clap three times and the truth would be revealed IF HE ALLOWS THE HEART TO BEAR THE TORCH WHEN REASON HAS CONSUMED ITS OIL.

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