He who Knows

HE WHO KNOWS……

Soaring high above in the firmament, an eagle alights, sets his paws on the rock.  To it is chained a man with loaves of his flesh scattered about the rock.  This eagle daily devours his liver.  He is Prometheus, a Titan, who dared steal fire from the Gods, and presented to humans along with the method to use it. As a punishment for his venturous deed, he was shackled to a rock where an eagle feasted on his flesh, making him die a numerous times before his peril.

Prometheus has stepped out of the folios of Greek Mythology, but his fate has not altered since then.  He is bound to suffer for his bravery of bringing enlightenment to the ignoramus folk. From times immemorial, the enlightened ones have been considered a blot on the mankind, whom they endeavored earnestly to bring forth on the dazzling light of knowledge.  As guerdon what, instead, they receive is the tyrannical treatment at the merciless hands.  Socrates, born in Athens in 470 BC, was forcibly made to drink the cup of poison for his innovative ‘ideas’.  Socrates, who spent most of his life as a wandering teacher would hold discourse with any passerby.  For him, the commoner ranks as great as the king, as far as the question of intelligence was concerned.  He was held guilty for defying the established truths and thus corrupting the masses with his innovative ideas, encouraging them to exercise their reasoning power.  The grand jury of Five Hundred people sentenced him to death.  Of course, he could apologize, but he preferred to die at the altar of truth, rather than bow his head before the masses.  After his death, he was pronounced and acclaimed as the greatest man that ever lived! Did he suffer for abnormality of his conscience only? Certainly not, people of such caliber and the so called abnormality have lived in every age, at every place on this earth.

The religion is a fine encyclopedia of such people. Jesus, a jew, was crucified for the sin of bringing forth edification to the common folk.  He became Christ after his crucifixion –Christ is the Greek version of Hebrew word ‘Messiah’ – the anointed one.  Our own, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was martyred by the reiging emperor Aurangzeb in 1675 for similar reasons. Not only those holy spirits. But EVERYONE who dared to revolt against the dogmas suffered the same fate.  Galileo Galilie (1564-1642 A.D), unfortunately disclosed the mysteries of nature, and was, thus summoned forthwith ‘for his blasphemy of church’ and sentenced to bow thrice before the jury.  His observation and theorem of Sun as being the centre of the Universe and Earth, a mere planet like others, challenged the axioms earlier made by the mythology, and thus, the existence of God.  The clouds of evil loomed large over Giorbino Bruno (1548-1600AD), who ‘violated the Church as only intermediary between man and God’ and asserted God to be present in every manifestation of nature and each living being.  He was burned at the stake in the busy Flower Market of Rome.  Marie Olympe Gouges (1748-1793 A.D), the French author, who sinned by ‘demanding equality for women’ was beheaded on the orders of Premier Robespierre. The authorities considered it a great sin to grant equal rights to the weaker sex.

The literary figures too could not extricate themselves from the claws of the psychopaths.  Paash, the notable Punjabi Poet, was shot dead in broad daylight for committing himself to the heinous and naked truth of humanity, and through his blood suffused poetry uncovering the same.  Taslima Nasrin could not restrain herself from unveiling the facts regarding man slaughter and the masked faces of ‘rational beings’.  She was excommunicated for this sin, and for past decade, she has been living in Sweden under the continual threat of being killed. Who does not know Salman Rushdie, against whose ‘satanic verses’ a number of fatwas have been declared in many countries?

Was there no ‘normal conscience’ working in those awarding such cruel punishment to them?  Had the writing community been the only sufferer at the hand of such ‘irrational, self-imposed authority’, the case would not have been that deplorable.  The fact is that, who ever has attempted to refute the out-dated and stagnant dogmas, and valued their conscience as far greater than the apparitions of zealots, have been subjected to such brutal treatment.  A closer look at the history enables us to perceive clearly how they were all tormented for their ‘prescience and knowledge’ – what we consider right today wasn’t even thought of in yester-eras.  The very concept of women having equal rights with men, was something to be ridiculed; but now, this is the main concern of nearly every conscious woman, worldwide.  That Earth revolves round the Sun, and not vice versa, a fact which even a child is aware of was ‘blasphemous and corrupting’ the times when it was propounded. The authority of Church has been challenged! 

The clergy, papistry, and traditions are deep-rooted in the society and their impact is innate, as if man is born having stuffed those with in his mind.  The fate of Liberated ones can be well imagined, wherein the herds of obscure minds play a predominant role!

Even political geniuses like Martin Luther King, whose ideas were later to have a profound impression over nearly all the democracies of the world, was not spared, but killed.  The same thing happened to Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence.

History is said to repeat itself, if this to be taken as granted, let one advice be given to ‘everybody who knows’.  From the mirror of history have a glimpse of your impending future, and dare not unveil truth.  Why arouse slumbering folk?  Why invite death by yourself?  Ye! Enlighted ones! Let them sleep, for they have been sleeping since man emerged on this planet, and whoever dared to arouse them, had been killed with such brutality, that History hides her shameful face whenever they are recalled.