Not OSA. In a July 12 press release Reverend Flip Benham, director, OSA said, “Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood. They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There were three in the audience with the courage to stand and proclaim, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ They were immediately removed from the chambers, arrested, and are in jail now. God bless those who stand for Jesus as we know that He stands for them.”

I feel more strongly about what happened in the US Senate than many, but not because I’m an unapologetic Hindu. I was born into the faith; intellectually I subscribe to its hugely challenging layers; spiritually I feel one with the idea of Oneness and dharma. Above all, I respect the space it gives to each and every individual to fashion his life according to ideas he identifies with, even as he seeks out a higher goal, integral and non-contradictory in its marriage of body and soul.

As a student, I also studied the Bible. Even today, I can recite all the books of the New Testament with as much ease as some of the lines from the Gita. I have enjoyed stories of the Old Testament (Cain and Abel, Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath) as much as I have the Mahabharata (Krishna and Kansa, Bhima and Duryodhana, Arjuna and Karna). But as a by-product of one man’s quest to experience spiritual heights and depths, institutionalised religion doesn’t measure up and this annoys me. Worse, as it shares those ideas, society develops fixity and the original seeker’s purifying principles turn into putrefying dogmas that grow into fossilised boundaries — if you step out, you get ostracised. Any attempt by individuals, cults, groups or, as in this case, the US Senate, to bring about religious harmony, acceptance, tolerance or even exposure, meets resistance from incumbents of dying ideas. By putting this troika behind bars, America has shown a toughness that needs to be commended and one that India would do well to emulate when self-styled religious leaders run amok.

... contd.