Corona Pandemic, Spirituality and Faith in God

Covid-19 is spreading its tentacles with ever-accelerating speed, almost threatening to engulf the entire humanity. It is an unprecedented situation. Many countries are under lockdown. People are worried and scared. Some are discussing the origin of Covid-19, the politics and economics of the pandemic, the way out, and the future of humanity. Some others are trying to understand the hidden/spiritual message behind the pandemic. While few others are wavering in their faith on God and even questioning the existence of God.

I received a few questions from my friends. I tried to answer them for myself. In the following paragraphs, I am putting down my answers to them.

Question-1:

What do we understand from the Closure of Shrines due to Corona Pandemic?

There can be no single inference on the closure of shrines for all our conclusions depend upon our observations, state of our mind and our worldviews. Therefore, different people draw different conclusions about the same occurrence. Some of the conclusions, I can think of, are -

• God is indifferent to human problems. He has no message for mankind in the closing of the shrines. It isn’t God, rather, it is man who has built these places of worships for himself and it is the man only who is closing them now. It is man who created this problem, it is man who shall face it - God is unconcerned and aloof.

• Or, it is a sign of God’s wrath – man has committed so many sins and this pandemic is His way of punishing man for his sins. God is disillusioned with the stupidities of man, He has disowned him and turned him away. Man needs to make penance for his sins.

• Or, God is untrustworthy - when man needed him most, he left him alone.

• Or, God is powerless and helpless and therefore He withdrew.

• Or, there is no God; He is an imagination of the human mind. It is simply a secular issue. Man built shrines for himself and closed them to save himself.

All these are subjective interpretations of the human mind and everyone is free to draw his own interpretation.

How do I interpret this situation? I view opening and closing down of the shrines a superficial occurrence which has no designed or predetermined divine message in it. Man created these places for his own self - it reminds him of God and helps him connect with God but now, when they have become a threat to the very existence of man, he has rightly closed them. Instead of being orthodox, he is being rational, and rightly so. Science, Religion and Spirituality are not against each other; they just operate in different domains. Man shall use all/anyone of them depending on what is useful to him at the moment.

Yet, I see a message in this occurrence. It is -

• A situation that is questioning the wisdom of mankind and the direction he is following.

• A situation showing man how incapable and weak he is,

• A warning to man to rethink about his goals and means,

• And, a signal asking the man to stop, think and change his direction. 

Question-2:

Who is GOD - some power away from this planet earth or all elements on it who support and interact with each other?

Make no mistake - unless one has seen/met God, God is only an idea or a concept to him. 

What I am telling about God in the next paragraph is also only an idea of God which I formed for myself after reading spiritual texts such as Gita, Upanishads, Savitri, etc. I am not sure myself if it defines God fully well.

God is all that is - the whole existence or all that is manifest (ॐ तत्सत्, वासुदेव सर्वं इति) and all that is Unmanifest (असत्). God is not only all that is and all that is not, but also beyond the Manifest and the Unmanifest, i.e. the Transcendental (परात्पर). Even when he is Transcendental, He is the Lord (ईश्वर), the Sanctioner (अनुमंता) and the Overseer (साक्षी). He is Impassive (उदासीन) and Indifferent (तटस्थ), yet the Lover (प्रियतम) and the Mother (जगदम्बा). He is Immutable (अपरिवर्तनीय) and Ineffable (अनिर्वचनीय).

All this seems self-contradictory to a human mind because the human mind is incapable of knowing God. It is a human heart that knows God. (The only solution available to man to know God is either to believe the sages or to find Him through his heart.)

This or any other definition is only a concept until it is realized.

Further, everyone is free to accept this or any other definition that appeals to him and helps him in his journey. 

Question-3:

How does spirituality explain this crisis?

To understand the present crisis caused by Covid-19, we need to first understand the working of God/Nature.

• God encompasses all the opposites in Itself; He is both – the Good and the Evil, the Right and the Wrong, the Beautiful and the Ugly, the Pain and the Pleasure, the Death and Life, the Rich and the Poor, the Strong and the Weak, the Saint and the Sinner, the Demon and the Angel, etc. There is nothing that exists outside God.

• He uses all these seemingly opposite characters/forces/beings to execute His will.

• Nature is not merely a conglomeration of material things governed by some unchangeable physical laws, it is a conscious entity. Nature has a purpose and a direction and also uses Destruction to hew its way. Death and Destruction are integral parts of Nature's working.

• Nature has created man; it is wiser and more powerful than man. It knows what it is doing. Unfortunately, man doesn't know the direction in which Nature is moving and invariably moves against its will.

• Death is not bad. We are afraid of death and consider it bad because we don’t know that we don’t die. We continue to live even after our death but we are no longer visible or perceptible to others and unable to communicate with the people we have left behind. 

• Death is a blessing in disguise - it helps us to take up a new birth, a new path and a different and higher goal.

• Death is a means by which Nature forces us to leave all that was dear to us in this life and that we were not ready to leave.

• Destruction is a predecessor to Creation. Death paves the way for a new and greater life.

All these conclusions are derived from ‘Shastras’ and not verifiable by the physical science man is enamoured of. Nevertheless, they explain the situation very well.

Thus I see Corona-Pandemic, as

• A situation that is questioning the wisdom of man and direction he is following.

• A revelation to show man how incapable and weak he is,

• A warning prodding man to rethink about his goals and means,

• And, a signal asking the man to stop, think and change his direction.

Note and Disclaimer: 

I am a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I have had good exposure to science, reason and spiritual philosophy. I find no conflict between Science, Religion and Spirituality, because I find that they belong to different domains.

I have presented my views on the above topic the light of the writings and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Yet I may be wrong; I am not an authentic interpreter of their writings and teachings.

Feel free to accept/reject these views.