LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 31.COMPARISONS ARE NOT VALID!

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

31.COMPARISONS ARE NOT VALID

Man lives in a  physical environment- he is part of it. He also lives in a social environment, which he has himself created. How he organises his interface with these is the essence of his civilisation and culture.This can be done on the basis of unthinking instinct, mental processes or spiritual awareness. These represent three levels of civilisation. They are based on the state of evolution of the society, and it would be unfair to compare them. The majority in any society is just a block of unthinking masses, and get used to their conditions, blaming their fate or cursing the gods. A few people think and try to find solutions to perceived problems and make things better. But no solution is found satisfactory in the long run; new problems or sources of dissatisfaction are found, and the search for better or simply new ways goes on. The modern world calls this progress. Scanning the literature of the world, we can see that no society is satisfied with itself at any time for long.

The only source of satisfaction or contentment comes from an awareness of the basic nature of the world, and of man himself, and his place in the scheme of things. In the west, this was the beginning of the philosophical quest. Socrates prescribed: "Know Thyself". It is man who perceives the world, but he does not know himself! His perception of the world can be correct only if he has awareness of his own nature. This is an experience, not an idea. It is really a spiritual quest, not mere philosophical inquiry. It was too much for the old Greek society, and Socrates was put to death. But in drinking poison, Socrates proved his conviction of the immortality of the soul. He had chance to escape, and friends to help him do so, but he refused. So, Socrates lives in his death.

This is a glorious chapter in the history of mankind.The whole episode and the defence of Socrates are highly elevating.

After Socrates, the philosophical quest became merely mental exercise, with Aristotle holding man to be a (mere) rational animal. His spiritual potential was not reckoned. This has been the West's plight ever since. The heights attained by Socrates have not been touched since, not even glimpsed. There have surely been individuals with such a vision, but the vision remained individual, often secret. Society as a whole was not influenced by it. Christian theology displaced all old insights, and was itself discredited and displaced by modern science. Modern society has become secular (ie without spiritual vision); it takes sense perception alone as the test of reality. 

Ancient man was deeply aware of his dependence on nature, aware that he was part of it.. He lived with it, making due adjustments. Since physical conditions varied widely in different parts of the world, his style of adjustment also differed, resulting in wide differences in food, shelter, clothing. No ancient people cursed their environment. No one thought of conquering or subjugating nature. Nature was divine for them and they sought to understand and communicate with it. They understood Nature's language and its moods.

Up to the end of the Middle Ages the social framework with its hierarchies, mutual obligations and other features was also taken as "given" and people lived with it.

All ancient religions were based on celebrating and venerating Nature- their social and religious life coinciding with Nature's cycles. Organised Christianity created the first schism: the Biblical injunction " Be fruitful and multiply; subdue the earth" (Genesis 1.28) was interpreted officially as meaning man's superiority and hegemony over the rest of nature and giving him licence to deal with them as he pleased. The belief was spread through Christian catechism that everything in nature was created for man's use and enjoyment. He had dominion over it. Scholars have argued that this is the single most devastating element of Christian teaching at the base of the modern ecological crisis.Christian theologians are busy reinterpreting the position.

The attitude to Nature is one of the most important differences  between all the ancient religions on the one hand and the three Abrahamic religions viz Judaism, Christianity and Islam on the other. All these are dated, recent and based on personality cult. On the other hand, all the ancient religions are incredibly ancient, no one can fathom their origin. Arrogant Christians dubbed all the ancient faiths "Pagan" and systematically destroyed them. They were ably supplemented by Islam which is inherently militant.

One way the ancient religions inculcated respect for nature was by treating nature's powers and manifestations as divine personalities. The Abrahamic religions and following them the modern western academics and scholars could never understand this simple truth but treated them as nature worshippers, pantheists, etc. They were simply called 'primitive'. Modern scientific civilisation has reduced the world to a waste heap and polluted the very sources on which life depends- air, water, soil within 200 years of industrialisation and scientific technology; the ancients preserved the whole earth in a pristine condition, we know not for how many millenia; yet the moderns have the temerity and plain idiocy to call the ancients primitive! The man who drives a fancy car burning fossil fuel and releasing carbon monoxide and polluting the atmosphere is 'advanced'; the man who drives a bullock cart and preserves nature is 'backward'. Can perversion in language use get any worse?

Hinduism is the only ancient religion which is still practised in the world! It is the only ancient religion which has preserved all its scriptures intact! This is one reason why the two Abrahamic religions-Christianity and Islam are aggressively active in India, seeking to  convert and destroy Hinduism.

But the educated  in the West are aware of the limitations of Christianity on many fronts: imperfections of the Bible as the word of God; the absurdity of the Genesis story of creation; doubts about the historicity of Jesus, and many details of his life including his birth and its date; (Recently, scholars have claimed that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene: see Times of India,11.11.14); the Buddhist base of the teachings of Jesus (eg. Jesus's sayings "I and My Father are one; the Kingdom of God is within You"  etc have no basis in the Judaic religion. Jesus's insistence on non-violence and the idea of incarnation are also of non-Judaic origin) The educated westerners are turning away from organised religion and fall in a new category called "spiritual but not religious" or "non-affiliated".

Hinduism did not start from speculation, but awareness. Our Rishis "saw" the Truth, did not invent them. Their knowledge was derived from identity, not analysis. You cannot know a tiger, unless you become one! Perfect knowledge makes the process one: the knower, the known and the process of knowing! The subject-object division vanishes. The whole of normal perception is based on this division, but spiritual awareness does away with it!  It is not that the world outside vanishes; only, our perception undergoes a change.

This poses two problems:

1. This represents the very summit- there can be no further 'progress'. Perfection in any field signifies the end of the quest. This poses the risk of a slide.

2.Since the spiritual vision alters our vision of, but does not destroy, the world outside, the greatest practical issue is how to reconcile the two in day to day life! Fire will burn even a Jnani, as the poison killed a Socrates, or the bullet killed the Mahatma! (though they would say it is the body which is gone, not they themselves!)

The entire course of Hindu civilisation is an answer to this quest, an attempt at reconciling the two: spiritual vision with secular life. Vedic religion did not advocate running away from the world, or shunning it as evil.It prescribes a full life: let us live and enjoy a hundred years it says. One of the most basic  Vedic prayers of the Hindus prescribes, addressing the Sun:

Pasyema Saradas satam
Jeevema Saradas satam
Nandama Saradas satam
Modama  Saradas satam
Bhavama saradas satam
Srunavaama Saradas satam
Prabhravaama Saradas satam
Ajeetaasyama Saradas satam 
Jyokcha Suryam drusey!

May we witness  (and bow to the Surya) a hundred years!
May we thus live a hundred years!
May we enjoy with our family and relatives a hundred years!
May we enjoy happiness  a hundred years!
May we flourish a hundred years with fame!
May we utter sweet speech for a hundred years!
May we live a hundred years unconquered by any evil!
We wish to enjoy like this, beholding the Sun  for such long years!

This is the Hindu philosophy of life- the original Vedanta! This is what we see in practice, up to the time of Bhagavad Gita (3100 BC).

Spirituality or high religion cannot be practised by entire societies- all people not being suitable for such a high venture. So Hinduism prescribed different methods based on the principle of 'differing competence'- adhikaari bheda. But all of them had the same ultimate goal, which was denied to no one. It was Buddhism which disturbed this arrangement, by prescribing Sanyasa as the remedy for the problem of Samsara, and prescribing it for all, irrespective of the state of preparation and fitness. In the process, it corrupted the ideal of Sanyasa in practice, and destroyed society.  Subsequent philosophers could not completely counter the strong idea of the world as a place of suffering, and sanyasa as the remedy. This has been the undoing of India and India has only been sliding for the last 1500 years, subject to all types of foreign invasions.

Westerners and their Indian imitators have spread the notion that India was traditionally poor, and that this poverty was due to their religion which was otherworldly. This is an absolute canard. India was known in the ancient world for its fabulous wealth, which attracted plundering marauders like Mohammad of Gazni repeatedly. From the beginning of the Christian (Common ) era, up to the mid 18th century, India contributed more than 30% of the world's GDP; most of it was industrial output, not agricultural produce. It changed only ofter the British came and started swindling us. Our present poverty has nothing to do with our religion or philosophy;it originated with the British and continued with their Indian imitators.

But our intellectual life shrank under the impact of repeated  foreign invasions and Muslim rule. We aimed at merely preserving what we had, and did not grow. This is the reason why there is not much of creative literature for the last 500 years or so.

The Muslims brought one level of modernism: we had to contend with organised monotheism which believed in and flourished on conversions. The Muslims destroyed our temples but could not destroy our religion or philosophy. The Europeans brought another level or wave of modernism which was more insidious. They destroyed our self-respect and made us imitators ,while at the same time making us believe that this was progress and modernism! Macaulay, who was instrumental in introducing an alien system of education along with English language, wrote to his father in 1836:

Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully.....The effect of this education on the Hindoos is prodigious.No Hindoo who has received an English education, ever remains sincerely attached to his religion....If our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolator among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence....I heartily rejoice in the prospect.

 Sri Ramakrishna was born in the same year ,1836, and Bengal was saved. His disciple went to the US in 1893 and conquered the Parliament of Religions  and won the hearts and mind of many intelligent, educated Americans. He made the West aware of Hinduism- the oldest religion in the world. Many of our national leaders during the freedom movement were inspired by him. Vivekananda was followed by Sri Aurobindo- the single Indian most feared by the entire British establishment, admitted by the then Viceroy himself! His nationalistic writings stirred the youth, and shook the empire.But he left active politics to pursue Yoga.

The national movement then fell into the hands of Gandhi, who was often confused and baffled. He led the movement to an imbroglio over the Hindu-Muslim issue, and led to the creation of Pakistan, both directly and indirectly. Gandhi became ineffective as leader after the failure of the 1942 movement and his followers, Nehru and Patel, sensing that freedom was near, accepted  the division of the country, as if it was their private property. It was only Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who opposed  the creation of Pakistan, in writing, till the end.

Nehru became the leader after Independence. He was not the first choice of Congress leaders- it was Sardar Patel. But Gandhi anointed Nehru his successor and foisted him as the PM. After Sardar Patel's death in 1950, Nehru became absolute sarvadhikari- like a Hitler or Mussolini, though with nominal democratic trappings.  Nehru had been educated in England and become completely anglicised in his thinking. His administration continued exactly what the British had left, including its educational framework. Since Nehru dynasty continued to rule for  half a century, our educational system remains essentially anti-Indian in spirit. It is England ( and now USA) transplanted in India. Our higher education is such that it can only serve the United states!

The Christian missionaries could not convert Hindus from the higher classes; so they are concentrating on the lower strata. But Macaulay's education aimed at the higher classes, targeting their mind . But there is a curious turn now: scientific advances have discredited Christianity; the educated people turn agnostic or atheistic or non-religious practitioners of eclectic spirituality. So the result of modern education on Hindus today is not  necessarily to make them Christian, but to render them anti-Hindu!, or at least unsympathetic to Hinduism, about which he understands next to nothing.These are the Macaulay's children now, and they run administration, the media, the educational circus. Thus the  educated Hindus are becoming de-Hinduised!

It is necessary to be aware of this background. Most Indians do not know their cultural history or the philosophical foundations of their religion. They do not know the history of Christianity or Islam, nor of the development of modern English literature,or of their philosophy. Even of modern science, they know pretty little at the cutting edges- they have only second hand or third hand access. All essential original research is done abroad-still. Even those Indians who have won world laurels in science -Dr.S.Chandrasekhar,Hargobind Khorana, Venkataraman Ramakrishnan-  have done so working and researching abroad. Our vaunted educational system once turned out clerks for colonial administration; it now turns out cheap engineers more than 60% of whom are found to be not employable! And the rest go to serve the States!

Good literature will contribute to our knowledge of the world. Mastering Indian classics is necessary to understand our own cultural heritage which is by no means mean.And acquaintance with the English classics  will help us understand the evolution of the modern world  as it has evolved with it; it will enable us to relate to it better, without feeling inferior in any way. It will also expose us to some beautiful minds from abroad. Exclusive concentration on science or technology, and lack of exposure to good literature, especially the classics, will only make us morons and amoral , consuming animals. (In fact, worse than animals, for they know their limits, we don't.)

NOTE:

On the economic condition of India before the pre-British days, see: INDIAN MODELS OF ECONOMY,BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT by P.Kanagasabapathi (PHI, New Delhi, third edition, 2012), chap.2