Puppets Need a Puppeteer And a String

MOST HUMAN BEINGS YEARN TO BE TAKEN CARE OF, DISCIPLINED, RULED AND DOMINATED.

Exactly 20 years ago, a young movie-maker walked into the hearts and minds of a billion Indians with a panache that few movie-makers can dream of. His debut movie became an instant cult-classic and continued to remain so for many many years.

This film-maker worked equally hard to extricate himself from the hearts and minds of most Indians. When he just had a little bit of his tail stuck in the cracks of the exit door, he made sure to get that part unstuck too with one smooth jerk. A year ago, he participated in a protest in Mumbai, and justified the validity of the protest and his presence there with an iconic dialogue that would have probably served well in his cult-classic movie, but made absolutely no sense in the real world –

“If everything was okay, why would so many people be concerned and be here protesting?”  The basic reasoning he gave was – “Could so many people be wrong?“

Besides this “ultra-democratic-proof” of the validity of an action based on the size (and unruliness) of the mob backing it, he had absolutely no other justification for why he was protesting.

There was nothing surprising about this statement. The movie-maker is firmly rooted into and emerges from an idea of chronic mob-culture that is several centuries old. He subscribes to ideologies that sprung in lands where somebody you didn’t like was collectively stoned to death. In India, in recent years, they get to the streets in tens of thousands, even lakhs, simultaneously in multiple cities, demanding instant beheading of somebody who has dared to call out their bluff.

Brutal deaths, whether of a man who supposedly defied their God, a woman who supposedly eyed another man, or poor helpless animals for no fault of theirs – is the primary source of spiritual ecstasy of the philosophies that this movie-maker subscribes to. 

Their primary entertainment and joy comes from deaths, and like a connoisseur of any other fine art, the connoisseurs of death do not enjoy a death until they have tasted every drop of the dying creature’s blood – drop by drop.

Of course, the said movie maker, has been endowed with sufficiant intelligence and sensitivity to have made one of the most unforgettables movies in the Indian cinematic history, and he does realize the demonic nature of where he stands. When in his apologist mood, he often disassociates himself from the inhumanity he was born into, by announcing himself as an”atheist”. 

But that is on Odd days.

On Even days, he is a proud member of the “fastest growing religion” in the world. 

There are a couple of religions in the world who compete for the “count of highest number of subscribers”, and the “fastest growth rate”. Apart from their current number and the growth rate, apart from the brilliant – “Could so many people be wrong?” they have very little to prove about the superiority of what they stand for. As an example, they have very scant spiritual content to speak out for.

When they are proudly proclaiming their superiority based on their current size and the growth rate, it is immaterial to them to mention if this exponential growth comes by breeding like flies, killing and brutally torturing those who do not agree with them, or bribing people all the way.

Essentially, they use the same methods to dominate this earth that their Gods use to get themselves worshipped – bribing through promises of endless wine and women in the after-life FOREVER or a dire threat to burn you FOREVER. 

Before getting any further, just imagine what “Burning Forever” feels like. It is not burning for a million years, or a billion years, or a trillion years or a quadrillion or pentillion or hexillion or septillion or octillion or nonillion or decillion or centillion or millenillion years. It is “burning for god-damnillion-years- FOREVER”. The burning would never ever ever ever ever ever end.

These are the real men who know infinity.

But it’s not all that bad. If you are a good boy, your wine and women would last that long, too.

Human Beings, by nature, are not wired to be free.

I come across a lot of people seeking mentoring, who request me to be “absolutely strict” to them. At times, even friends who need some help with their subjects while preparing for an exam, have often requested me to be “absolutely strict” with them, so that they can cover their curriculum and complete their tasks on schedule.

We are naturally wired to be Puppets. Freedom, for most of us, means having a benign puppeteer.

People put their children for tuitions not with tutors who will illuminate their child’s minds with brilliance, but with those who will be strict with their child, and would ensure that their child would remain “disciplined”.

The quest for disciplining themselves and others, and the quest for wanting to be disciplined by someone is the sad, sorry state that defines the majority of Human Beings. 

Romantic stories are abuzz with tales of how ultra-dominating “bad-boys” are considered so sexy and are able to catch the fancy of hot girls so easily that “non-bad-boys” could only dream of.

Wanting to live in fear, fantasizing to be dominated, longing to be punished and disciplined, are not just tales of BDSM. This is the normal state of living for most human beings. The majority seeks to experience “adventure” in form of oozing adrenaline in their lives.

This mass-yearning to be controlled and regulated paves way for the “Greats”.

In a world of people predominantly wanting to be scared, dominated and disciplined, the few one who can scare, dominate, discipline fit easily as the complementing symmetry.

Puppets Need a Puppeteer and a String.

If you look at all entities – human or divine – who regularly get suffixed “The Great” have a terrible history of unimaginable monstrosities. 

In a world where most people come out of wombs already moulded a slave, what chance does an ideology that asserts that you are the drop of the divine consciousness that created the entire cosmos have?

If you are divine, then who are you going to show your wounds to?

If you are cosmic consciousness, you no longer have the luxury to lick your wounds and seek to destroy others for having given you those wounds.

That’s too much of a responsibility.

In the history of the world, a personality is considered benevolent only if he has a sufficiently monstrous side. A king who is benevolent at all times isn’t manly enough to catch popular imagination. 

Generosity and large-heartedness shine only when they come as a contrast to unimaginable brutality. An emperor is considered large-hearted, when on an odd day, he lets a prisoner go, who otherwise would have been fed to the lions.

The practice of referring to brutal emperors as”the most benevolent one” gets easily extended to the emperors of the Universe as well. 

Whether in the heavens or on earth, most people are seeking tough daddies, strict teachers, brutal feudal lords, blood-thirsty kings, vengeful saviours and equally wrathful Gods, whose treatment of you solely depends on how much you suck up to them.

Every human being is an aspiring puppet, and needs his string to be pulled by a skillful puppeteer to function. It allows us to shun all responsibilities and put the onus of our well-being and behaviours outside of. Whether “I am following the laws of the land” or “I am following the laws of the Almighty”, being strictly governed allows us the luxury to be unaware, unconscious, and transfer all responsibilities for what we do and who we become to something outside of us.

So, what are the options for free-thought, freedom of spirit, and spiritual freedom?

A hint to the above question – all those who have been adored as champions of free-thought, and continue to hold that reputation, are responsible for homicides ranging from a few millions to a few hundred millions.

In this grand puppet show, we need a lot more than ordinary intellect, morality and ethics to survive as humans.

You cannot beat basal human instincts by ordinary means!!!

Just as a lazy student adores a teacher who breaks it all down for him, provides “important questions” in advance, explains to him every concept to the last detail, a Puppet adores to be made to believe that he was “born in sin”, because then he can be “resurrected” or “saved”.

Just as a lazy student doesn’t want to believe he is smart enough to solve his problems, a Puppet would never ever accept that he is a divine spark and that he can realize his divinity and cosmic consciousness within himself.

Both cases lead to “too much work”, and too much responsibility.

Puppets need a Puppeteer and a String.

No worldly means, no logic, no reasoning, no intelligence, no morality, no ethics is going to help you survive this puppet-show.

Nothing less than a spiritual assertion to stand up for your freedom of spirit would suffice. We cannot survive as a civilization by mimicking the uncivilized, and we cannot survive as a civilization by giving into the fear-and-greed (threaten-and-bribe) model of the uncivilized.  

The only way out for us is to go back ENTIRELY to what our civilization stands for.

From a splurge of abundance and illumination of the brightest minds to being prepared for the most valiant battles against the puppets, and the dark forces that manoeuvre the strings of the puppets – that’s what we need even today.

We cannot have an Indian civilization survive by behaving like “Roman Mobs”, content with our daily breads and a little circus.

We have been picking up wrong battles and targetting milestones. For example – our leaders are often heard and seen vying to either un-breed the puppets or out-breed them.

The Puppets and the Puppeteers are thriving, because the non-Puppets are trying to make this a battle of Puppetry and venturing to win it by being smarter Puppets and Puppeteers.

The Puppets and the Puppeteers are thriving, because those leading the battle against them are trying hard to be a Puppeteer themselves, and are finding great support from their flock who are behaving like aspiring Puppets themselves. Remember, human beings are naturally wired to be puppets.

We cannot be who we are by ceasing to be who we are.

We cannot be who we are by beginning to be who we were not, who we are not, and I pray – who we should ever be not.

We have to stop entertaining the fantasies of being a Puppet, and need to reject ALL Puppeteers – whether on their side, or ours.

We have always stood for Freedom of Spirit, and that’s the only ideology we should entertain.

And yeah, the answer to “Could so many people be wrong?” is always – “YES”.