OUR
LIFE AND OUR NATURE
JATINDRA MOHAN GANGULI
One of the fundamental
causes which lead to miscalculations and disappointments in our lives is our
not appreciating the limitations of our powers and capabilities. Being too
much, and in fact most of the time, turned outward to the external and the
physical, our mind which forms and judges our impressions and ideas is left
unchecked and unstudied. In the natural course, the mind thus grows
presumptuous, and its consequential egoistic outlook makes it dogmatic and
assertive in its inferences and conclusions. What is beyond its orbit of
comprehension it will pooh-pooh; what is mysterious it will consider in a way
that satisfies its vanity; what is beyond its power and control it will not see
or admit. Some seeming and generally elusive success in some physical
experiences encourage and support this attitude. We want to think and believe
that we can mould even our human nature which we are far from understanding,
and change and fashion it according to plan and to our wish. Give me a kid and
I shall make it a lamb to my liking, we say, if I only have the means and
opportunity for doing it.
But does not such
wishful thinking lead invariably to bitter disappointment? With all the love
and care given to children, parents one day may be cruelly disappointed to find
them going astray from the track marked out for them. They become differently
inclined, differently shaped, differently natured, though the environment,
association and living conditions have been the same for each one.
Such disappointments
come to all at sometime or the other. And many people look for a reason for it
in, quarters other than in the inevitable individuality of human nature. We
come to the world with a nature characteristically our own, and we move on
through the span of this life on a marked track, like railway train rolling
over fixed rails. I avoid the word predestination because it is associated with
some theological implications of controversial nature. For the same reason I
refrain from asserting that, according to Sankhya philosophy, at the time of
the end of life a balance sheet, so to say, of one’s doings is made up which
decides the course of one’s next life – although there may be something in this
hypothesis to think over and reflect upon. I shall therefore confine myself to
facts and realities coming under our direct observation and experience.
We observe and
experience so many things, but when we want to understand and explain, then we
are inclined to make even unconsciously, suppositions which conform to our
faith, belief or likings, rather than to what may seem to be more rational and
true; and, oftener than not, we thus go the wrong way. On looking deeper into
events, happenings and our own experiences, however, what do we find? If we
look into our life, through its ups and downs, and its many vicissitudes, how
many of them do we find have been of our choice, aim and plan? On how many
occasions did our will prevail? What sharp bends could or did we effect in our
nature and inclinations?
We are often inclined to
argue, but even then we discriminate between those events and happenings which
turned to our liking and desires and for which we take credit, saying that they
were due to our will and effort, and those other events which went against our
calculations and which we attribute to fate. The good qualities in those who
have been under my care have been due to me, but their faults and defects were
to their having had a bad background in past lives. Is there any rational justification
in such thinking and judging?
Our nature works and has
been working, perhaps in a system and according to a law, but are we the
planners of that system and makers of that law? When a river comes from its
source and bends and turns, and flows over or round boulders, we might as well
think that all that was willed, directed and controlled by itself. But when we
sit on its bank and watch it coursing along, we see how causes altogether out
of its control regulate and determine its onward flow. Its nipples and murmurs
seem to display its enthusiasm and satisfaction at its own doings, but we see
that they are not of its own wishing and doing. The levelling of its course,
the hard or soil, the stones and boulders on its bed, were not of its choice,
but due to altogether external agencies.
The sea waves come
majestically upon the shore, then break and playfully recede to the depths they
came from; but I laugh at their swelling with pride for nothing, for nothing is
done by their own will or power. So, also, I am amused when I watch from the
balcony the stream of human beings going both ways, in different moods with
different purposes and with different feelings of assumed self-importance. Each
one evidently thinks that his own will is acting and deciding every step of his
way, but as I extend my vision and look behind or ahead, I can see the road and
motor-bus is going, turning aside a little from its route because of an
incident happening ahead of it on the road, but the men whom I see from the
balcony, who are going that way, do not know of the occurrence of that incident
as yet; to them that incident is still in their future.
Thus we all go, each one
rolling over the rails on which he is placed and meeting events and occurrences
which await ahead. Scenery changes, weather changes, but the track keeps on the
rails; and so does man and his nature. The impulses and inclinations which
come, come in a sequence which is characterised by the path he is treading.
“Behold, Arjun” said Krishna, “they will, be all killed in spite of you,
………they are all killed by Me.” And what Arjun was disinclined to do, he saw
already done in the yonder where the present and the future merged.
One’s nature is not changing but only evolving in its own manner as determined by the track it has to follow. Little minute creatures are we within an incomprehensible vastness, wherefrom – how we do not know – come excitements and impulses which make us do, work and function as we do. If individuals were left free to be willful and playful as they liked could the system work? If influence and environment could change one’s inborn nature, amidst royal luxuries and attractions Siddhartha (Buddha) would not have turned an ascetic and a Bhikshu. If teaching and preaching could produce results, the world’s great teachers, preachers and prophets would not have failed to change at least their own men and society. Within the direct sphere of their influence what crimes, what atrocities were not committed?