Age of instant enlightenment
It seems we are living in the age of instantaneity and quick consumption. Everything, be it a McDonald’s burger, a cup of Starbucks coffee, a twitter message, or even a political satire on YouTube, is produced and consumed as fast as you can imagine. There seems to be no end to the rapidly changing flow of commodities, symbolic goods, Facebook/Instagram images and messages. It seems we are only running, and eternally hungry for something ‘exciting’ and ‘new’. See the way this age of instantaneous consumption transforms even religiosity/spirituality into a product. From a quick look at a book by Osho while waiting in the airport to a three-day retreat in a fancy ashram for learning breathing exercises—the aspiring and mobile class transforms even the ‘alternative’ into a consumable product. Not surprisingly, in this media saturated world, YouTube is full of innumerable packages of instant enlightenment: ‘Zen Buddhism: The Easiest Spiritual Path on Earth’, ‘2 minutes to heal your upset mind’, or ‘If you do this 1 thing every day, God’s grace will find you’.
How does one make sense of the flourishing business of the ‘spirituality industry’? Possibly, it requires a deep understanding of the inner emptiness of the newly emergent aspiring class — terribly busy and over-stressed professionals, or the bunch of celebrities — from film stars to cricketers — living with chronic anxiety of falling from their elevated positions. In a way, this is the dialectic of ‘success’. The more successful you are, the more fearful you become. And at times, this leads to a sense of fatigue and even meaninglessness. Yet, despite being burnt out, there seems to be no escape from this hyper-competitive game of social Darwinism. See the way the age of techno-capitalism with its obsession with productivity, limitless growth and conspicuous consumption has made many of us almost incapable of living in silence. Instead, as the clock time is measured, quantified and fragmented into hours/minutes/seconds, we get disciplined to use every fragment of it for ‘productive’ purposes. The tyranny of the time-table makes us restless. No wonder, we are always in a hurry. In fact, not to be busy is seen to be a sign of failure. And despite the availability of all sorts of time-saving gadgets, there seems to be no time to see a tiny blue flower, a sunset, or to echo with Walt Whitman—‘to me every inch of space is a miracle’. Instead, everything—even a morning walk—has to be measured in terms of its utility value (say, reducing blood sugar and hypertension). We are the prisoners of time. No wonder, like fast food, even love or religiosity has to be consumed quickly and instantly.
There are moments when this class too feels a need for peace, tranquility and self-realisation. However, it is not easy to be free from the attachment to the comforts and privileges they are used to. Nor is it easy to be free from the mood of instantaneity. And herein lies the sociology of the arrival of all sorts of life coaches, motivational speakers, and new age spiritual messiahs. They come forward with packages of instant redemption — a ‘feel good’ moment for a couple of days before you go back to the old routine: working like robotic performers, earning, saving, consuming and buying all sorts of insurances. Hence, come back from your office, have a cup of coffee, open your laptop, spend five minutes, feel the miracle of YouTube, and listen to, say, a talk by Brahmakumari Shivani — ‘2 steps to think right always’, or a discourse by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar —‘15 minute morning meditation’.
No, it is not easy to spend more than 15 minutes for spiritual redemption. Nor is it easy to be a wanderer, and give up the real source of inner emptiness—the craving for what Gautam Buddha regarded as temporal pleasures. These ‘new-age gurus’ and babas too are not interested in a fundamental psychic/existential/spiritual revolution. They just give you some capsules for quick consumption, and feeling ‘positive’ for an hour. No wonder, these days all these celebrity babas are continually speaking, and the companies they run are never tired of manufacturing innumerable videos conveying all sorts of healing practices for instant consumption — say, ‘how to detox and relax through breath’. Sometimes, I ask myself: Do these babas ever experience the depths of silence: the silence that takes one beyond life and death, or the silence that makes one see the emptiness of everything? Or is it that, like tape recorders, they are continually talking? Think of, for instance, Sadhguru. It seems he is compelled to speak on everything on earth—‘Why teenagers don’t get along with parents’; ‘how to stop overthinking’; or ‘one simple rule for success’. There is no end to the list. This is what the ‘spiritual industry’ does; it manufactures all sorts of products that, like other consumable items, promise instant gratification.
This is not to deconstruct our spiritual quest and longing. Nor do I suggest that all these videos are necessarily trivial. I too watch Alan Watts or Jiddu Krishnamurti on YouTube; and at times, a Taoist discourse on ‘Be like water’ makes me spiritually musical. Yet, it is important to be cautious because in the age of instantaneity, the overproduction of ‘spiritual packages’ for hyper-modern consumers trivialises the very quest for what Rabindranath Tagore would have regarded as our surplus—the urge to see beyond the finitude of utilitarianism, and experience the glimpses of the infinite in the finite.
