Internet: Sign of the Times!

Speak Lord Your Servant Hearth!

     God speaks through “the signs of the times” is Vatican 2nd’s version, of Indian wisdom Isavasamiham Sarvam. In our globalised world internet has become the hotline (substituting religion?) to speak and listen to God, not in heaven, but in the other (neighbours around the world) in the biblical sense.

James kottoor

    Isavasamiham Sarvam (God is omnipresent), that is, He is present in you, in me and everyone. If so the next step is to say: Aham Bhramasmi (I am Bhraman) or at least, I am part of that Bhraman, even if not the whole of it, definitely not outside of it. Was Jesus meaning the same when he said: ‘I and the Father are one? To see me is to see the Father’ when Philip asked Jesus: ‘Show us the Father that is enough?’

     Was John telling us anything different when he said: ‘One who doesn’t love his neighbour whom he sees, cannot love God whom he doesn’t see’? It is because God created man in his own image and likeness. What else did Paul mean when he said:  ‘You are the temple of the Holy Spirit?’ Was it not precisely for this reason Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well: ‘Time has come to worship God, not in that temple or this, but in spirit and truth in one’s own heart’? To prove he meant what he said, Jesus even wept over` the manmade temple of Jerusalem going to be erased to the ground without leaving one stone upon another. 

God Speaks Constantly

  What are we driving at with these biblical quotes? It is to arrive at the example of young Samuel in the Bible saying: “Speak Lord for your servant hearth.” It speaks volumes of his humble, docile, prayerful attitude with which he listened to God speaking to him in sleep and dream. It means God speaks to us constantly   when asleep and awake, especially through people, the only visible image of God we have here below. The question is: Are we listening to Him? Of course we encounter God also through other “signs of the times” such as happenings in and around us, not necessarily through church structures or religious leaders.

Normally one thinks, God speaks first and foremost through the hotline called religious leaders who proclaim good news and dispense God’s mercies – answers to heartfelt prayers, miraculous cures of mind and body, deliverance from sense of guilt due to one’s own real or imagined wrong doings (sins), finally peace of soul -- in and through shrines, temples, mosques and Gurduvaras.

 Yes they still continue to hold sway as testified by regular flow of devotees to pilgrim canters like Sabarimala, Mecca, and Velankanni and to God men of various hues. It is this time-tested route to God that seems to have  gone haywire by the sudden entry of internet era, the “new Sign of the times” (new hotline?) challenging the old and causing total change in the mode and speed of human communication at one’s own space -- relaxed or heightened.

New Signs of Times

With all kinds of websites hovering around us we are now challenged to communicate horizontally and vertically – horizontally when we share ideas among equals and vertically when we listen and learn from teachers and masters in various material, social, intellectual and spiritual subjects. Since they are available in the internet round the clock and across the world, traditional divines and God men limited to specific time and place are getting sidelined, if not ignored. What is in the offing now is competition for the survival of the fittest in the field of communication.

 Reportedly India today has more than 400 million active users of the internet and over 800 million mobile phone subscribers. Besides an energetic and young generation below 35 which forms 65% of this country of over a billion is in the rat race to catch up these instant achievers through internet.

Reason? The exciting sights and sounds, especially in the visual media, more than in the printed press, are causing an explosion of expectation in our youth. It makes them restless and drives them to get their due share in the pie offered by what is today known as knowledge era, age of globalisation, the internet era which puts one in instant contact with the rest of the world. Besides access to participation in this global conversation through internet is faster and easier compared to print media which is tedious and time consuming.

Unlike in the press, when one writes in internet – whether website magazines, Twitter or  Face book -- one is speaking to the whole world and when one reads he/she is listening to a whole world of knowledgeable people. That enjoins on every one twofold strict duties of self-regulation since there is no editorial checks and pruning here as in press: 1. to be responsible and respectful to the audience we are addressing, 2. to be docile and receptive like a Samuel when we read and react.

Be Respectful & Docile

   First needs little explanation because in a website we are listening or speaking to a literate and discerning audience by the very fact they are able to use this most modern internet facility. The second needs more careful thought because everyone who writes in any media is de facto our master and teacher. For instance you who reads these lines is my master because you know much more than I do on various topics, perhaps even on the topic I am writing.

  That is also the wonder of creation, that is, no two people are alike in all things in this world and therefore each has something to teach, which makes him/her a teacher in his own right. Hence also the saying: “You should learn even from the grave-digger.” That stresses the need to cultivate a student-teacher attitude when we read what is written, as expressed by Samuel: “Speak Lord for your servant hearth.”

   It is through this teaching-learning process that we all grow into our fullness? For example what is the biggest room in this world? Its name is the ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT which none of us shall ever fill. It also tells us of the enormous void each one of us have to fill, if we are to grow up fully.

Disagree agreeably

  Only when both the readers and writers are fired by this zeal and refined  motive of learning and sharing, can a website or printed page produce maximum benefit for maximum number of people. In this dialogue across the globe there is also a lot of room for disagreement and criticism, since it is human to err, whether one is master or student. Only, one has to learn how to disagree in an agreeable way. This becomes easy when we show utmost respect to the “Ahambhramasmi” in the other (human) “the crown and glory of God’s creation” as Vivekananda defines humans, because man is no enemy to man though his ideas often are.  

   So the principles to remember could be: “Each one teach one” and “Learn from each other.” This learning could be from what is being written and also from websites of inspiring thoughts and ideas one may have already created for the benefit of posterity. Many have already thrown open their store of thoughts for public use. Emulating them, I too share with you what little I have gathered. You are therefore most welcome to visit: https//sites.google.com/site/jameskottoorspeaking/, Twitter.com.jameskottoor, and Facebook, to see what is in my store. 

Read and react, we must, to these modern ‘signs of the times’ constructively and critically without mincing words but politely, if we are to grow into our fullness in these fast changing times. That may be the best way also to make internet and websites play a vibrant role in global sharing for everyone’s benefit, nay a real CELEBRATION in our knowledge era.

 The writer can be contacted at: jameskottoor@gmail.com