The Challenge of Destiny

By:  L.H. Onderson Mawrie

The Main concern of the Khasi religion is with the status of man and his ultimate goal.  He comes to this world with a divine decree and divine purpose, to occupy the highest place among all other creatures.  According to the Hindu though Man is a part of the creative process;  he is the eternity in itself contained in his constricted personality to be merged sometime or other with the ultimate Reality.  As per context of the Khasi Religion Man is a part of the creation and he has an identity and he will retain that identity to the end of time.  Once he is created he becomes timeless and it is here that he is to face the challenge of Destiny.

God as "U Nongbuh" is the designer and in this divine scheme of things Man has the highest place and he is destined to play the part as such.  Man has therefore the spark of the divine spirit in him;  he in not the product of Nature but he has all the essence of a man.  He has both dignity and freedom and it is this subjectivity in him that decides and determines his destiny.   As a creature he is incomplete and he cannot grow beyond his human status and his Creator with all his divine grace and mercy is there to watch over him and guide him in his journey of life.  In the Khasi religion there is no such thing as incarnation but God's revelation to humanity is never final and it is the ongoing process and it is this also that determines the relative growth of each individual.

According to the Khasi thought Man has to grow independently out of himself. 'Ka sap tipbriew tipblei,' the inherent power divinely bestowed upon him by his creator is already in him to know himself and to know the things beyond him.  Nature and God are but aids to help him attain security of being and to maintain his human status.  Life is growth and he is to grow consciously as a man.  All the divine gifts are directly connected with his being a man and God himself is directly involved in his to help him in his being and in his growth.  the upward surge of the Spirit the bridge is there to link him with his creator to be a source of strength and power and a fountain of consolation in his struggle of life.  It is not a wish fulfillment or an ecstatic experience but the experience of something transcendent in every condition of life.

The common feature that the Khasi Religion shares with other religions is that there is a being or an existence beyond the mental and physical appearance we have in contact here.  Beyond mind, life and body there is a soul and it is the soul that he is to account for from man's side.  The basic principle that governs his life is "Ieng rangbah u briew", a Khasi expression which scarcely finds any equivalent expression in English.  Literally speaking, he is to stand like a man before his creator i.e. he is to play like a man and act like a man.  This forms the essential ideal of a real spirituality.  It is a willful misunderstanding to say that we live in externals of rite and ceremony for all these play an insignificant part of our life.  To play the man is a thing stamped upon the mind of the people and for anything unpleasant in our life we blame ourselves for unworthiness.  

The very name "Ka Niam Tipbriew ka Niam Tipblei" we give to the Khasi Religion which is literarily translated into "The Man-knowing and God-knowing Religion" describes it as having a three sided affair.  First, Man is primarily concerned about/with himself and then he is to know his fellow beings and finally he is to know God.  Taking the first two only he may be described as having two sides - solitary side and the social side.  Most religious describes life as nothing but eh creation and self expression of Man's Spirit, power, capacities to think, to create, to love and to achieve.  Such religions take only the solitary side of man.  Here he is alone with his Maker where he feels the depth of his own life of his being.  It is here that he feels the meaning of life and its purpose and it is here that he feels that God is both transcendent and immanent.  it is here that he draws a new strength for his life and peace for his mind and it is here that he feels the full play of his life.  Here in his solitariness with God he can feel the fullness of life and he can grow beyond himself to things that speaks of eternality.

On the other side there are his fellow-beings.  In the totality of life Man is conceived not as a single human being or as a single individual.  he comes to this world through his family and he comes through a divine decree and with a divine  purpose.  the womb of his mother is the divine gate for him to come to this world.  whether he takes the form of a male or female it is according to the divine allotment.  there is nothing to him as sacred as his family and there are none as precious to him as are the members of his family.  the sense of nearness and closeness is described in one line of a sentence - "they are his own knee" and to put them away from his life is to discard his own knees.  He is part and parcel of "the Family Cause" that divine cause which upholds and sustains the security.  Integrity and dignity of his family of which he is a member;  the house in which he lives is more than a shrine or a temple because in its hearth he worships "the God of the family" who is also the God of his clan, of his Race and who is also the God Universal.

In every house there are two fire-places called "Ka Rym-pei" and "Ka Neng-pei" the Rympei means the lower fire place which is in the inner part of the house and it his here that the family worships "the God of the family",  for everything that the family plans or undertakes to do, it makes him hear and listen (pynsngew pynsngap), thanking him for everything that it has received and pleading with him for any unfavorable life-conditions.  Men should be at peace with god right from the Rympei.  No one is supposed to have an access into it except the close relatives of the family.  family affairs are as sacred as the family itself and they should not go beyond they preach of the Rympei.  Others can have access up to the Nengpei which is in the outer part of the house where there  is a fire place where there is a out chatting and eating of bettlenuts.  the Rympei is the seat of all education of which the unshakeable basis is 'man knowing and God-knowing'  an education which gives the highest spiritual meaning to all aspects of human nature.  In everything he is made to feel the closeness of the creator and to see the moving Hand beyond his natural life, beyond his individual ego, something other than the needs and interests of his vital and physical nature  it is the education which gives a love and turn to his thought and action and feeling which build up in him the pattern of spirituality which is the characteristic of his race.

If religion  can be described as a way to life, culture can be described as a way of life and if at all we are to appreciate what Khasi Culture is we are to note that it has its origin in the Rympei.  It is the one in which we grow up and the one from which we draw our life principles and life governing ideals.  It is not the cloak or robe that we put on but the very life blood and soul of our race.  It is not form for a form has a certain fixity with limits and its cannot exhaust itself to express fully the potentiality of ideas and the forces that give them birth.  Culture refers to the inner character of the people which has no limits as well as to its expression that is the form or the play of force which is only a partial expression to culture.  If the culture of a race is to suffer any degree of decline and its force cannot fully express itself it is because of the people's inertia or that there is a critical period of supernatural decay and disintegration.  No race is static and in the process it may shake off its limiting forms and it may renovate its ideas to give a new scope to its spirit but this comes only when a true expansion of life and true renaissance.