The talk in town recently involved the suspicion of corrupted practises by a group of religious leaders from the City Harvest Church (CHC). Reading various reports and argument from both camps who defended and condemned him respectively, I tweeted the following:
“The corruption of religious leaders is worse than secular. Not just betrayal of material trust but distortion in the pursuit of happiness.”
At the time of writing, these leaders from CHC are being investigated. The verdict is yet to be announced. But that is not of my main concern with this blog entry. If they are innocent, I congratulate them. But if they are guilty, I am of the mind that their crime is worse than mere commercial fraud.
There was this famous quote attributed to John Lennon which reads, “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
In this adventure we know as life, there is no pursuit more important than the pursuit of happiness. Not the pursuit of health, wealth, honour or glory. Happiness!
And we have teachers for many things. For example, we have teachers in our pursuit of knowledge, proper behaviour and professionalism. But teachers in our pursuit of happiness have to be accord the highest seat of respect. And the ones playing the roles of teachers in the pursuit of happiness are often the religious leaders. Rationally, we know that there are both good and bad teachers in all fields. And we are well-advised to learn from teachers with open yet discerning minds. However, that does not diminish the responsibility of the teachers to live up to their teachings. As such, the responsibility of a religious leader is massive.
Corruption in any field is bad. But to me, the corruption in the business of providing spiritual guidance has to be the ultimate evil for it actually contributes to the confusion and distortions to followers’ pursuit of happiness. It cannot be forgiven. This is why I felt that spiritual leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Daisaku Ikeda, who held themselves to high standards of morality, are the true shining gems of humanity.
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Wisdom to discern good from evil. That is what all involved needs to cultivate.
