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Reprinted with permission from Dr Vispi Jokhi’s blog, "Musings, Own Thoughts.”

While growing up I don’t quite remember if my parents ever made me aware of my religion as a Parsi Zoroastrian child. Unlike in the homes of my cousins and Parsi friends, the picture of Prophet Zoroaster was not an enlarged, prominent one, omnipresent in every room and ritually garlanded, along with the customary offering of diva batti (oil lamps). My childhood memories are of a family of hard-working, middle class parents focused on earning money to ensure a good education and future for both my elder sister and myself. 

For the traditional navjote ceremony, we learnt our prayers sufficiently to be able to recite them decently; this soon trickled down to just memorizing the Ashem Vohu and Yatha Ahu Vairyo. Both these prayers were in Avesta and were neither understood by nor explained to us. We were expected to decipher for ourselves the importance of religion and its connotations.

At school we were exposed to other religions. My sister attended a Parsi school where my mother was a teacher while I went to schools run by Catholic Salesian priests. Churches and their grandeur favorably impressed my young mind. The teachings from the Bible were in English and could be easily understood. I told my mother that I would like to go to church and be a Christian. Contrary to the expected reprimand, she explained that all religions are similar and, while one should follow the religion of one’s birth, it was more important to live up to the values propounded by the faith. In school, the enthusiastic celebration of all festivals and the discovery of the stories behind them invoked in me a liberal, inclusive, thought process. 

My parents were not superstitious, nor were they given to visiting fire temples to seek divine favors. They always told me that honesty, sincerity and hard work were the keys to success in life. My lawyer father and my mother always led by example. We were given books to read on our nation’s freedom struggle and the Mahatma Gandhi-Jawaharlal Nehru-Vallabhbhai Patel ideology held sway in our house. While I was never told to eschew Muslims, that Parsis had reportedly fled Iran because of persecution by adherents of Islam and the Hindu-Muslim pogroms during partition, made me neutral at best, and at worst somewhat antagonistic to Islam. However, I had Muslim friends in school and could comprehend they were no different from us.

I imbibed the feeling that India was multicultural with diverse people. This multifariousness created occasions for monthly celebrations. The calendar of festivals, feasting, fun and games was unending. These ranged from kite flying, playing with colors, bursting firecrackers and feasting. The celebrations created bonds of friendship.  Independence and Republic Day with memories of leaders like Gandhi and Nehru became part of the fun and games of childhood.

I think I instinctively started to question the concept of a God who watched and recorded all that I did and would reward and punish me for my good and bad deeds. This was unsatisfactory as often I saw evil triumph over good. Although I was taught that ultimately Satyamev Jayate (truth alone prevails), I was not convinced. Falsehood was not only winning, but actually destroying the righteous. A just and all-powerful God appeared unable to conquer wrongdoing. Or was there something more? In religions like Zoroastrianism, Islam and Christianity followers are told to believe unquestioningly in the power and goodness of God. I began looking for and demanding evidence for the existence of God. I concluded that there was no need for God and I just needed to pursue moral values and all would be well with the world. The Zoroastrian tenets of good thoughts, good words and good deeds should suffice. 

The quest to find happiness and peace became more and more important. I started asking questions like: Who am I? Does God exist? Have you seen God?

My quest to find answers came when I examined the life of Mahatma Gandhi. As his source of inspiration was the Bhagavad Gita, I started reading the text. I found it difficult to comprehend but what I term the cafeteria approach appealed to me. Thinkers could choose the path of knowledge, doers selfless action, blind followers devotion and physical persons, discipline. All were valid and could lead to self-realization. These paths were available to anybody and not subject to one’s birth, station in life or religion.

The study of the Gita and Upanishads has provided many answers and my upbringing, which encouraged me to keep an open mind, was largely responsible for this. The logical approach resonated with me rather than the devotional one.

Still, this was not sufficient to convince my agnostic and atheist friends. My study of Vedanta led to understanding the three states of conditioned consciousness beyond which is the unconditioned consciousness which is infinite and everlasting, leading to a state of permanent bliss. Finally, the understanding of the four mahavakyas (principles) in Vedanta and Gandhi’s definition of God made me a firm believer that Truth is God. 

I will remain an eternal seeker of the truth and reach out to all seeking an inclusive oneness among the plurality of India, the world and the universe. 

An orthopedic surgeon, a "humanist, pacifist, environmentalist and seeker of eternal truth,” Dr Vispi Jokhi is joint chief executive officer of Masina Hospital.