I don’t think gods are portrayed as perfect beings or as a paragon of virtues in any theology. Their role is largely to keep the cosmic order in whatever field of function they belong. They do it faithfully governed by their own law without moral or other considerations. Sometimes they may use even the toughest means to shape the human vessel as we find in countless stories such as that of Nala-Damayanti, Raja Harishchandra, Shivi and many others. Basically they are too focused on the work which is given through inspiration of the Divine Will within them to bother much about human sentiments and human feelings. If they did so they won’t be able to fulfil their role of shaping humanity into a higher mould which is what they are meant for. It is somewhat like a trainer whose only consideration is to help you develop your physical or mental muscles even if you get tired. Sri Aurobindo describes this action of the gods in the following passages from Savitri in Book Six Canto Two.
‘Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break
A dead resistance in the mortal’s heart,
His slow inertia as of living stone.
If the heart were not forced to want and weep,
His soul would have lain down content, at ease,
And never thought to exceed the human start
And never learned to climb towards the Sun.
This earth is full of labour, packed with pain;
Throes of an endless birth coerce her still;
The centuries end, the ages vainly pass
And yet the Godhead in her is not born’
‘Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men
To greatness: an inspired labour chisels
With heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould.
Implacable in the passion of their will,
Lifting the hammers of titanic toil
The demiurges of the universe work;
They shape with giant strokes their own; their sons
Are marked with their enormous stamp of fire.
Although the shaping god’s tremendous touch
Is torture unbearable to mortal nerves,
The fiery spirit grows in strength within
And feels a joy in every titan pang.’
‘Only his law they count and him obey;
They have no goal to reach, no aim to serve.
Implacable in their timeless purity,
All barter or bribe of worship they refuse;
Unmoved by cry of revolt and ignorant prayer
They reckon not our virtue and our sin;
They bend not to the voices that implore,
They hold no traffic with error and its reign;
They are guardians of the silence of the Truth,
They are keepers of the immutable decree.’
It is also important to know that the action of the gods is not limited to a brief life’s will to act. They see through large spaces of time and know the law of things and how good comes out of evil and strength and wisdom are often born from the womb of danger and difficulty.
These are the highest of gods who are quite impersonal and universal in their working, like a surgeon excising things in our nature. However there are several other lesser deities who form pacts with human beings and can also turn malevolent if the human does not keep his side of the promise. But that apart, as you can imagine, it is difficult to bear the action of the gods who labour to change us. The titans have an easy task. They either terrify us or lure us sometimes in the garb of a god.
The source of true goodness and upward striving despite the struggle and the difficulties is within us. They key to change is within us. It is the psychic being and the Divine Presence within us, in our hearts. If we connect with that, the difficulty is resolved rapidly. This resolution is not an escape but a change through growth and evolution. It is somewhat like a child in a class finding the subjects difficult due to certain lack of faculties or capacities. Escape would mean leaving the schooling process. But the real resolution is developing the required capacity to overcome the challenge. This obviously takes time because often we want to somehow pass quickly by any means. But Nature insists that we grow and evolve.
However it is not that we are left helpless and alone in this evolutionary process that at times well looks not only difficult but even brutal. The Divine walks with us and intervenes at crucial junctures and critical moments to help us leap across the chasms, to hold us through the tunnel, to ensure that eventually with His help we win all the challenges and arrive at the victory. Let me close with these lines from Savitri again.
‘Yet a spiritual secret aid is there;
While a tardy Evolution’s coils wind on
And Nature hews her way through adamant
A divine intervention thrones above.
Alive in a dead rotating universe
We whirl not here upon a casual globe
Abandoned to a task beyond our force;
Even through the tangled anarchy called Fate
And through the bitterness of death and fall
An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives.
It is near us in unnumbered bodies and births;
In its unslackening grasp it keeps for us safe
The one inevitable supreme result
No will can take away and no doom change,
The crown of conscious Immortality,
The godhead promised to our struggling souls
When first man’s heart dared death and suffered life.
One who has shaped this world is ever its lord:
Our errors are his steps upon the way;
He works through the fierce vicissitudes of our lives,
He works through the hard breath of battle and toil,
He works through our sins and sorrows and our tears,
His knowledge overrules our nescience;
Whatever the appearance we must bear,
Whatever our strong ills and present fate,
When nothing we can see but drift and bale,
A mighty Guidance leads us still through all.
After we have served this great divided world
God’s bliss and oneness are our inborn right.
A date is fixed in the calendar of the Unknown,
An anniversary of the Birth sublime:
Our soul shall justify its chequered walk,
All will come near that now is naught or far.’
Affectionately,
Alok Da
