Not long ago I met three men who wanted to join Lodge Al Ameen. Each of them had a different reason for wanting to be part of it. I listened to all three and found myself asking a question I had not asked in a while. Why did I join? Why did I stay? The second turns out to be the harder question.
My own reason for joining was a piece of paper. I found a summons addressed to my grandfather calling him to a meeting of Lodge in Madurai. I also learned that he and my great-grandfather had both been Freemasons. I wrote about that in Following a Summons. It was curiosity and it got me to the door. It does not explain why I am still here.
Something else has to keep a man in the room. When I set the brochure language aside and asked what actually keeps me coming back, two answers came up quickly. They came up so quickly that I knew they were the real ones.
The people
Most of us spend our days wearing something. At work we are the title and the role. At home we are the person everyone depends on. In company we become the version of ourselves that suits the room. None of this is dishonest. It is how we get through a week. But after a few decades the wearing gets tiring. You stop noticing how much effort it takes. Anyone who has sat through a long meeting choosing every word with care will know what I mean.
In the Lodge I do not have to do that. I can say what I am actually thinking. I do not have to be anyone other than myself. The brethren I sit with do not care about my designation or what I have achieved outside the door. They care whether I am sincere. That is rare among adults. I did not fully appreciate it until I had it.
This is the biggest reason I stayed. Camaraderie is a word people use loosely, so let me be specific about what I mean. I mean the relief of sitting in a room where nobody needs a performance from you.
The support
A brotherhood is a fraternal support network. I use the word network on purpose. It is a set of men who know each other well enough to notice when something is wrong and who have committed themselves to doing something about it. Life at any age throws things at you: a career that stalls, a health scare in the family, a loss nobody saw coming. When you have people around you who have promised to look out for one another, those things feel different. You are not carrying them alone.
I want to be careful here. Nobody should join Freemasonry to collect favours. A Lodge that behaved like a business network would be missing the point entirely. The support grows out of the friendship and never the other way round. But it is real. It is there when it is needed. It also goes both ways, because every man in the room is expected to show up for someone else.
What I would say to a new candidate
I do not yet know what each of those three men will find. Their reasons for coming were different from one another and probably different from mine. That is fine. Nobody needs the same reason to walk through the door. What matters more is what you find once you are inside. I found a place where I could put down the mask and a group of men who would stand beside me. That is why I stayed.
If you live in Bangalore and are curious about Freemasonry, my suggestion is simple. Ask questions. Ask the brethren why they joined and why they stayed. You will hear different answers from different men. That is a good sign because it means each of them is speaking for himself.
Lodge Al Ameen No. 1412 works under the Scottish Constitution. If you would like to know more you are welcome to reach us through the contact page on this website. Come and see whether the room suits you. It may not. That is a perfectly good answer.