LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 83. SIGHT AND INSIGHT

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

83. SIGHT AND INSIGHT

Outward Show and Inner Reality

The world is divided in every conceivable way- by political, racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic ,etc factors. And each of this is further subdivided: within nations we have provinces; within religions,sects; within political parties, groups or factions; within languages, regional variations! The list is endless.

Yet, great minds of all times, of all races and faiths have spoken about the unity of Mankind. Even in modern times, the great statesmen who thought of the UN and the great economists who conceived of the Bretton Woods institutions thought of humanity as a whole- of multilateral arrangements, beyond all national barriers. How they have turned out in practice is a different matter- any golden vessel seems to become a mud pot in the hands of practical men!

Political or any kind of power confers a sense of superiority on the possessor. This is but human. At the height of the Victorian age, when Britain ruled over one fourth of humanity,- one in four people of the world were subjects of the Empire- the pride felt by the British ruling class was quite natural- even if it hurt us. Rudyard Kipling sang about the civilising role of Britain; Macaulay felt the other races and peoples were barbarians and England had to impose its language , law and culture on them. Yet, deeper thinkers were looking at another picture: how hollow was this glory; how the outward glitter and glamour concealed suffering and sorrow. Just as Macaulay was extolling the virtues of European knowledge and achievements, Matthew Arnold wrote:

For what wears out the life of mortal men?

     'Tis that from change to change their being rolls;

'Tis that repeated shocks , again and again,

     Exhaust the energy of the strongest souls
 And numb the elastic powers.

-   From: The Scholar-Gipsy.1853

Again:

Sons of the world,oh, speed those years;

But,while we wait, allow our tears!

Allow them! We admire with awe

The exulting thunder of your race;

You give the universe your law,

You triumph over time and space!

Your pride of life,your tireless powers,

We laud them, but they are not ours.

Our fathers watered with their tears

This sea of time whereon we sail,

Their voices were in all men's ears

Who passed within their puissant hail.

Still the same ocean round us raves,

But we stand mute and watch the waves.

Say, have their sons achieved more joys,

Say, is life lighter now than then?

The sufferers died, they left their pain-

The pangs which tortured them remain.

- From: The Grande Chartreuse,1852

Again:

..............the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy,nor love,nor light,

Nor certitude,nor peace,nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

- From: Dover Beach, 1851.

The world goes by outward sight and show; the philosophers and poets have the insight to tell us the reality behind the show: Macaulay imposed his education and law on India; yet within 15 years of Victoria's passing, the armies of the 'enlightened' nations of 'civilised' Europe were engaged in the bloodiest war in known history, on land and sea, day and night!

Changing perceptions of vulgarity and barbarism

Indian poverty has been a subject of political and economic debates. People have ascribed it to India's religion, its 'other -worldliness'- a pet theme and fond rhetoric of our leftist comrades and the intellectuals with brains dyed in Harvard and Cambridge. Yet, what is the truth?

India was once so fabulously rich that the other nations of the world held this very prosperity against us! As Sri Aurobindo pointed out:

No people before modern times reached a higher splendour of wealth, commercial prosperity,material appointment, social organisation. That is the record of history, of ancient documents,  of contemporary witnesses; to deny it is to give evidence of a singular prepossession and obfuscation of the view, an imaginative, or is it unimaginative, of misreading of present actuality into past actuality.The splendour of Asiatic, not  least of Indian prosperity, the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind,the "barbaric doors rough with gold",barbaricae postes squalentes auro, were once stigmatised by the less opulent West as a sign of barbarism.Circumstances are now strangely reversed; the opulent barbarism and a much less artistic ostentation of wealth are to be found in London, New York and Paris, and it is the nakedness of India and the squalor of her poverty which are flung in her face as evidence of the worthlessness of her culture.

From: A Defence of Indian Culture,1919.

Of course now we have the further unshakable evidence from economists themselves about the historical richness of India. eg. Angus Maddison who has shown that in the Christian era, up to mid-18th century, India contributed about 30% of world GDP, not all of that agricultural products!

 Macaulay's children will decry not only our history and culture, but also deny our economic greatness and achievements.

Rajarishi- Philosopher Kings!

Great thinkers - men endowed with insight- have always seen the imperfections in the external life of man. The remedy they prescribed was for the ruler to be endowed with wisdom: power tempered by a higher vision of life. Two thousand five hundred years ago, Socrates declared , as recorded by Plato in 'Republic':

Unless the philosophers rule as kings, or unless those now called  kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize, and political power and philosophy coincide in the same place,....there is no rest from the ills for the cities, my dear Glaucon, nor I think for the human kind.

From: The  Republic of Plato, 5.473d. Translated by Allan Bloom.

Socrates felt that with this one change, the cities (ie the quality of life in the cities)would be transformed.

Shortly later, we have our Tiruvalluvar emphasise the same point in his Kural, in ten verses,( 541-550) saying how the righteousness of the ruler accounted for the welfare of the people, accounting for even the rainfall! Righteousness here indicates moral excellence, not just administering some law.

Socrates.Capitoline Museums, Rome.

At least two thousand years before Socrates, we have Krishna telling Arjuna that the ideal for a prince is Janaka, the ancient king who was also a sage! So we have all ancient authorities  converge on the point that temporal power must be tempered by a higher wisdom, for people to lead happy lives. A king who claimed: " I am the State;after me the deluge" invited the deluge of revolution soon enough!

Solomon (Sulayman, according to Muslims) is held up for his wisdom ;yet his life is not inspiring., or elevating. In historical times, we have only the example of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor from 160 to 180 AD in the West of a true philosopher- king. He called himself "protector of philosophy" during his visit to Athens in 173 AD- Athens , the ancient seat of Greek Philosophy! And he recorded some notes to "himself" during his campaigns in the last ten years of his regime, which have become world famous as "Meditations". Though Roman Emperor, he wrote it in Greek- perhaps an unconscious tribute to the Greek Masters, the fathers of Western philosophy. Some samples from his "Meditations":

• You have power over your mind- not outside events. Realise this and you will find strength.
• The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
• Everything we hear is an opinion- not a fact. Everything we see is perspective,not the truth.
• Waste no more time arguing about what  a good man should be. Be one.
• Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.
• The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

Marcus Aurelius. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

We Indians find so much in common in his Meditations. This shows how great minds think alike, and how true philosophy leads to the same destination, from East or West. We have brothers everywhere. Rajaji rendered it in Tamil long ago.


Philosophy consoles

In recorded Western history, we rarely meet philosophers who become kings,or kings who turn philosophers, or combine both power and wisdom. Bu

One of them is Boethius. He was a Roman nobleman, who lived from c.480 - 526 AD. There had been Roman emperors and Popes among his ancestors. He too held a high position in administration, but was accused, probably due to treachery, of treason and jailed. He was put to very painful death. He devoted his time in prison to philosophical inquiry. The question that worried him was: why do good people suffer and evil ones prosper? He conceived of Philosophy as a compassionate wise woman or goddess and wrote down his meditations as a dialogue between them. They discuss the issues that have always troubled all thinking men: why is there evil in God's creation, how can we be happy, what is the place of knowledge, why is our knowledge imperfect, how free will can coexist with God's foreknowledge , etc. He veers round to the view that the human race has fallen from its source, and hence has lost knowledge of the whole.These dialogues are published under the title 'The Consolation of Philosophy'.

For neither does he know in full,

    Nor is he reft of knowledge quite;

But, holding still to what is left,

    He gropes in the uncertain light,

And by the part that still survives

To win back all he bravely strives.

The way for man is to meditate and acquire inner knowledge.

Who truth pursues, who from false ways

    His heedful steps would keep,

By inward light must search within

     In meditation deep;

All outward bent he must repress

His soul's true treasure to possess.

The ultimate teaching he gives is to have faith in God and lead a virtuous life.

" withstand vice, practise virtue, lift up your souls to right hopes, offer humble prayers to Heaven. Great is the necessity of righteousness laid upon you, if ye will not hide it from yourselves, seeing that all your actions are done before the eyes of a Judge who seeth all things."

 From:  Boethius:The Consolation of Philosophy; Translated by H.R.James. World Publications Group,Inc. Signature Editions, 2008. This is a beautiful edition.

I salute all teachers, East or West!







Note:

Images of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius are taken from the Internet. They are reproduced here purely for educational purpose. No commercial or profit motive is involved. I have no intention to violate any copyright. If any violation is brought to my notice, I will remove the images.